The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, denied yesterday there was a staffing crisis in the Civil Service, despite the fact there are 1,794 vacancies in the 15 Government Departments.

Admitting there were "problems and pressures" with recruiting and retaining high-quality personnel, Mr McCreevy said the vacancies were in a total workforce of 22,000.

"There will always be vacant posts, reflecting gaps between the occurrence of vacancies and the filling of those vacancies. In addition, many outstanding vacancies are new posts and competitions to fill these posts inevitably take time to run." he told Mr Derek McDowell (Lab).

The Civil Service staff shortage was first highlighted in The Irish Times last week.

Mr McCreevy said the bulk of departmental demands for clerical officers would be met "in the very short term" by the Civil Service Commission, which was also accelerating the throughput of candidates for other positions.