Since the foundation of our State the integrity of all but a small section of our public employment system has been safeguarded by provisions designed to ensure that appointments are made on merit rather than on the basis of political favours.
As a result, only a small number of positions have been open to political manipulation.
These unsafeguarded posts included judicial appointments, constitutionally a matter for the government of the day, but now subject to certain safeguards; local appointments of vocational teachers, now virtually free of such interference; the appointment of Government Department messengers; and some manual worker jobs, especially at local level, which have not lent themselves easily to a public appointment system. And, of course, the area where abuse has been most flagrant, and sometimes very damaging to our economy, as in the cases of Irish Shipping and Aer Lingus: namely the appointment of directors to state boards.
When the State was founded there was a widespread expectation amongst some Sinn Féin activists - but most of all, perhaps, amongst large number who joined the Volunteers after the Truce had been announced - that the change of regime would involve "jobs for the boys". But on April 1st, 1922, the Irish activities of the United Kingdom Civil Service Commission were assigned to the new Department of Finance, which thereafter resisted huge pressure for such appointments. In fact the new State made very few additional appointments to the pre-existing civil service, adding, it has been said, only 1.1 per cent to its pre-independence strength.
This refusal of the new government to bow to party pressures on the jobs issue led to considerable tensions within the new political system, and may have contributed to the fact that when the government found itself facing seven by-elections for nine seats on March 11th, 1925, it chose to fight these independently of its own political party!
In 1924 the Irish Civil Service Commission was established by statute and given responsibility for all appointments to the civil service, and in 1926 a parallel Local Appointments Commission was appointed to end the scandal of political appointments, and even bribes being paid to councillors by applicants for posts in the local government service. (The equivalent of over €50,000 in today's money was believed to have been paid to secure a position as a dispensary doctor.)
When the government changed in 1932 de Valera came under the same kind of pressure. But no one in the public service was sacked - apart from the Garda Commissioner and Intelligence Chief. A few significant posts not covered by the civil service recruitment process were given to key Fianna Fáil supporters, others of whom gradually secured various manual worker jobs outside the system, but the civil service proper was not interfered with.
It is against this background, and despite the fact that the new public appointments legislation now before the Oireachtas arises from "Sustaining Progress" and the social partners, that concern has been expressed in the Dáil about the Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Bill. This Bill proposes to dissolve both the Civil Service Commission and the Local Appointments Commission, and to replace them with two new bodies: a Public Appointments Service (PAS), with power actually to make appointments, and a Commission for Public Service Appointments (CPSA), with power to license public bodies to undertake their own recruitment should they wish to do so. This commission is to monitor standards of probity, merit, equity and fairness.
In the case of the CPSA, the existing Civil Service Commission membership - the Ceann Comhairle and the secretaries-general to the Government and to Public Service Management and Development in the Department of Finance - is to be supplemented by six additional members to be appointed by the Government, while the PAS is to have a board of nine, including its chief executive - all ministerial appointments.
Licences may be granted by the CPSA to secretaries-general of Government Departments; CEOs of health boards, VECs, and other public bodies; county and city managers; and the Commissioner of the Garda Síochána. All of these may choose to seek such a licence or else continue to recruit through the revamped national PAS.
In the Dáil debate concern has been expressed about some aspects of the legislation, which the Public Service Executive Union has also claimed could put at risk our past record of probity in public appointments by the Civil Service Commission. These fears include a concern that, in conjunction with the proposed further decentralisation of Government Departments, the devolution of recruitment might "facilitate a culture of favouritism in appointments to Departments located outside Dublin", and that the Government's new power to make appointments to the CPSA - half of whose members need have no civil service or public service experience or knowledge - might be abused.
Quite apart from concern about possible politicisation of appointments, the tendency of the present Government to favour business interests over other considerations, such as environmental protection, raises questions about the possible balance of appointments to such a body. There is, moreover, concern about the proposal that recruitment agencies from the private sector may be accorded a role in future public service recruitment.
Finally, there is evident confusion over the question of whether political advisers might under this new regime be assimilated into the civil service at the end of the life of a Government, as happened in the past. The Minister of State, Mr Tom Parlon, who introduced the Bill several weeks ago contented himself with the remark that as the new Bill repeals an earlier Act "it is necessary to make new provisions to secure the continuing prohibition on the appointment of special advisers to permanent posts". But there does not seem to be any such prohibition in the Bill. When the Labour spokesman in the debate pointed this out, Mr Parlon ignored this intervention.
Some of the fears expressed may be unrealistic, and there is undoubtedly a case for some kind of reform of an appointments system which has shown itself somewhat inflexible in what is now a fast-moving world. But, given the sensitivity of the issue of public appointments, the Government would be well advised to show itself receptive to amendments that may be submitted by the Opposition at Committee Stage. It is hugely important that every step be taken to maintain the freedom of our civil service from any risk of politicisation.