The Government wants to decentralise recruitment to the Civil Service, allowing individual departments to recruit directly or use commercial recruitment agencies. About 15,000 people apply for the 30,000 jobs in the service each year.
But public service unions are expected to come out strongly against the move after considering detailed proposals put to them by the Department of Finance yesterday.
The assistant general secretary of the Public Service Executive Union, Mr Tom Geraghty, said last night the new system opened the prospect of ministers and TDs being able to intervene in the recruitment process.
For some time the Department of Finance, as well as some senior ministers and civil servants, have sought to speed up the recruitment process under the Strategic Management Initiative. Job shortages in recent years have seen a high turnover in young civil servants, particularly at the junior levels.
Under the new system the Civil Service Commission would be broken up into separate policy and executive arms.
The commissioners would become a licensing authority with a brief to ensure standards and probity. They would issue licences to recruitment agencies to run competitions. Individual Government departments or other recruitment agencies could apply for licences.
"In a society where 'pull' and influence are second-nature to the point where they can be described as 'part of what we are', the reputation for probity on the part of the commission has always stood as a bulwark against corrupting influence. These proposals could put all that at risk," Mr Geraghty warned.
The issue is likely to feature at annual conferences of the public service unions, which begin with the PSEU on April 19th.
The proposals are contained in the Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Bill, 2002 which is expected to be put before the Dáil in early May.