Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said there could be difficulties in the recruitment of outside people to managerial posts in the civil service.
"My honest opinion is that this seems a grandiose proposal to table, but I do not know how it could work.
"I have spent many years working with civil servants on the old relativity claims, equity claims and others, and can foresee a nightmare of arguments against this move.
"On the other side of the argument is the cost, because we do not have the expertise."
He said that exchanges currently took place in which people came into the system from commercial companies for a period, which was not the same as advertising the number two post in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to outsiders, for example.
"For those who work hard in the system, and do their best at executive officer, higher executive officer, staff officer, assistant principal officer and principal officer levels, what happens to their morale when they reach 52 or 53 years of age after serving committees of the Oireachtas and the public service and undertaking evening degrees, which many do, only to have someone from outside come in?
"It is a significant dilemma. To get a person comparable to someone who, by that stage, has 25 years of public service experience and a large amount of knowledge in dealing with Brussels, Luxembourg and so on, would not be cheap for the system.
"If the person entered at a very high level, what would happen vis-a-vis other levels and assistant secretaries in other departments?"
Mr Ahern said that in his department, which was relatively small, there were eight people doing post-graduate studies and a total of 33 at university level who got some assistance from the State's taxpayers.
"I welcome this activity as we should help them in their training and knowledge. This is a fair way of achieving something.
"It is not simply a case of advertising and bringing people in at the top levels."
Mr Ahern was replying to Labour leader Pat Rabbitte, who said he had concluded that Mr Ahern had thought about it and had concluded the implications for industrial relations and staff morale were such that he did not see how it could be easily done.
"A crying need exists for this type of expertise, and resorting to consultants is an extremely expensive way of achieving it," said Mr Rabbitte.
Mr Ahern said he did not disagree with Mr Rabbitte's analysis.
"It is a fact that we do not have the expertise in certain areas, sectors and disciplines. That is undoubtedly true.
"We saw recently that in IT we do not have the type of expertise that can design a system afresh. I am sure members of the House are aware that in the private sector developing and enhancing the quality and content of what a system will deliver is an enormously well-resourced job."
Earlier, Mr Ahern noted that the secretary general of his department had made a speech about the matter over the weekend.
"I had a chance to read half of his speech. As far as bringing in expertise from the private sector is concerned, he made the point that while it has been carried out in a limited way for many years, and a small number of people have been recruited, it has not been done in any major way."
While it might be argued that such a process might be cheaper than hiring outside companies, he did not believe top experts in some areas could be got cheaply.
