About 28,000 people have applied for clerical officer positions in the Civil Service, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin has said.

Mr Howlin said he could not state at this stage the exact number of clerical officers to be recruited under the new process but a large panel would be created from which Government departments could draw future personnel.

Clerical officers are lower paid staff within the Civil Service hierarchy.

He also said there had also been 24,000 applications submitted to join the Gardai. He said the first batch of 100 Garda recruits began training some weeks ago, another 100 would be taken on in January and a further 100 in the months ahead.

Mr Howlin was speaking at the Oireachtas Committee on Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform where he presented a supplementary estimate of €230,000 for the Public Appointment Service for this year.

The Public Appointment Service runs the recruitment campaigns for positions in the public service.

The Minister said the absence of opportunities for positions in the public service over recent years meant that applicant numbers were now high.

“By way of indication, the Public Appointment Service anticipates that it will process about 90,000 applications in 2014”, he said.

Mr Howlin also told the committee there were about 30 per cent more retirements from the Civil Service this year than had been anticipated.

He said that when drawing up its budget for 2014 his department had forecast there would be about 850 retirements from the Civil Service. He said, however, that in the region of 1,100 personnel had actually retired so far this year.

The Minister is seeking a net supplementary estimate of €22.25 million, mainly to pay for the retirement costs - such as lump sum payments - for the additional staff who have retired over and above the expected level.