Top civil servants will be banned for up to a year from taking highly-paid private sector jobs following retirement if they create significant conflicts of interest under a new code of conduct.
The numbers of highly influential civil servants leaving State employment in their late 40s and early 50s has increased substantially since the Government decided that secretaries general should serve for seven years.
Once in force, the rules will be monitored by the Outside Appointments Board, which will be dominated by non-civil servants, Department of Finance official, Mr Pat Ryan told the Oireachtas Finance and Public Service Committee.
Breaches of the code will result in disciplinary action and will be admissible in proceedings before a court, a tribunal or the Standards in Public Office Commission, TDs were told. It was found to be impossible to ban people from taking jobs for more than a year.
"The courts will enforce what is seen as a reasonable restriction by an employer on an employee," Mr Ryan told Labour TD, Ms Joan Burton.
The State could impose the year-long ban on retired civil servants by going to the High Court to get an injunction to force them not to take up a private sector job or to give it up if they have already been employed.
Ms Burton sought guarantees that civil servants would not "simply cross over" and join the boards of newly privatised companies in the years to come.
"I do not feel that that could be appropriate. This is particularly difficult with the Revenue Commissioners, where senior tax people work. The accountancy people are queuing up to get them. Their experience in the Revenue is wonderful," said Ms Burton.
The new code of conduct has been in gestation for over three years. It was approved by the last government in 2000. However, the Oireachtas Committee on Finance and Public Service did not finish debating the matter before the last Dáil fell.
Civil service unions have urged the Government to relax the rules banning all civil service officers, other than those working at clerical level or in craft and industrial grades, from being involved in politics.
Workers should especially be able to express their opinions on matters of public interest where those matters are not related to their work as civil servants, the unions told the Department of Finance.
Rejecting the unions' case, the Department of Finance said it would be impossible for most civil servants "to draw a clear line" between what is and what is not related to their duties.
Meanwhile, the unions asked that civil servants should not have to notify superiors if they are given the Probation Act by a court, though the unions accept that they should do so if convicted.
Rejecting this argument, Mr Ryan said a person's position in the Civil Service could be undermined if he/she received the Probation Act.
