THE NEW secretary general of the Department of Finance, John Moran, has been “overwhelmed” by the number of private sector firms that have offered staff to work for “Ireland Inc”.
Launching a revised version of Finance’s strategy plan for the years up to and including 2014, Mr Moran said it amounted to a “very significant transformation” of the department, which would require “extra help” to implement.
“We’ve been certainly overwhelmed by the support we’ve received in the last couple of months … in terms of large companies and law firms and accounting firms who’ve actually been prepared to offer us staff to come in … that want to do their part for Ireland Inc for a period of time to get us over this,” he said.
Mr Moran said the State did not have unlimited resources and the department had to, “frankly speaking”, be honest about identifying the projects it would have to drop.
He said the choice facing him was to put a public procurement process in place and hire in expensive consultants, or take advantage of the support the Department was getting from firms based in Dublin in particular but not exclusively.
Mr Moran said he had been “hugely comforted” by the numbers of people who “have actually put their hands up and said we can help you”. He stressed that this would be a short-term measure until existing staff were trained up. He said this practice was in place in many other countries.
Mr Moran said the Government had made it clear it would continue to “add resources across the system” where they were needed, despite the public sector recruitment embargo.
He said the type of staff required “go across all ranges”. The Department had not seen recruitment for some time and was therefore “incredibly short” of staff at administrative support level. New graduates had not been brought in for many years, “which is, of course, itself a problem in terms of succession planning and new ideas”.
He said the Department needed to be able to promote people internally and “backfill” gaps. There would be a competition, which he hoped would be open, for a new head of banking and new head of the economics unit. Credit specialists were also required, he said.
Approval had been given for 40 posts, along with “extra help in the short term” to assist the department during the State’s upcoming presidency of the European Union in 2013.
Mr Moran, who was appointed secretary general in March, having worked in the private sector for much of his career, said he wanted to operate an “outward-looking” department. He said he hoped to encourage a culture “which encourages the expression of ideas”.
Stressing that one of his goals was to improve people’s living standards, he said: “To be honest if we can’t achieve that, nothing that we are doing is actually counting for anything.”
Tackling the “hugely sensitive” area of mortgage arrears and levels of personal debt across all levels of society would also be a priority, he indicated.
