PUBLIC sector unions are sceptical of a new National Economic band Social Forum report saying overtime curbs could generate significant extra employment. They pointed to the new embargo on public sector recruitment as an obstacle and also to the specialised training required before many posts entailing significant overtime could be filled.
The latter include the Garda, prison officers and vets. The general secretary of the Public Service Executive Union, Mr Dan Murphy, says overtime was not now a significant factor in most Civil Service areas.
Among his own members the only area where it had been important was the Customs and Excise service, but this ended with the abolition of EU frontier controls.
Most overtime requirements arose from short term peaks, such as work on the Budget. He accepted that, with the imposition of the public sector recruitment embargo, more of his members might be asked to work overtime. The PSEU executive was advising its members to refer any attempt to increase workloads to the union.
The assistant general secretary of the Civil and Public Service Union, Mr Blair Horan, said that there was no systematic overtime at clerical level in the Civil Service. He queried the practicality of targeting the long term unemployed for public sector jobs.
Any appointment to the Civil Service should be through the appointments commission, he said: "Otherwise they could be open to political interference"
One of the few sectors where significant overtime does occur is in the Garda. Yesterday Mr Frank Gunn, of the Garda Federation, said overtime was carefully curtailed. It was generally only available to allocate personnel to major investigations.
While the federation pp higher staffing levels within the force, Mr Gunn said it was not practical to take in long term unemployed people. Gardai required two years' specialised training and there were fitness and age requirements.
An IMPACT spokesman said his union had a policy of trying toe replace routine overtime worked "by members with new jobs. This was part of the union strategy to combat unemployment.
Unfortunately the recruitment embargo and the cap on public service spending created problems in this area, he said.
Details from the NESF report appeared in yesterday's Irish Independent. The report is quoted as saying that public sector overtime levels are unacceptable when so many were unemployed.