THE NUMBER of staff employed in the Civil Service is to fall by nearly 800 over the next two years under a new directive on employment numbers.
The new employment control document for the Civil Service drawn up by the Department of Finance states that staffing levels will fall from 37,376 at the end of this year to 36,594 at the end of 2012.
The reduction in the numbers is expected to come about mainly as a result of the application of the moratorium on recruitment in the public service.
Last year the Government also put in place an incentivised early retirement scheme for Civil Service personnel in a bid to reduce the numbers on the State's payroll.
The new employment control document says that there will be a reduction of more than 170 in the number of authorised staff in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food over the next two years.
Staffing levels there will fall from 3,793 at the end of 2010 to 3,619 at the end of 2012.
In the Central Statistics Office the number of authorised staff will rise from 802 at the end of 2010 to 887 at the end of 2011 before falling back to 725 in December 2012 - leaving a net reduction of 77 over the two-year period.
In the Department of Education, the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Health, the Office of Public Works and in the Courts Service the number of authorised staff will be reduced by about 40.
In the Department of Justice nearly 50 posts will go.
In the Taoiseach's department the staffing levels will fall by four, while in the Department of Defence and in the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the numbers will remain unchanged.
The new employment control document also says that the number of civilians working in An Garda Síochána will be reduced by a total of 44 of the next two years - from 2,049 to 2,005.
In the prison service the number of authorised staff will be reduced by 68 by the end of the 2012.
In the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Social Protection the staffing levels will remain unchanged.
There will also be no change to the employment levels in the Ombudsman's office and in the President's establishment.
In the Oireachtas the authorised staffing levels will fall from 484 at the end of 2012 to 466 at the end of 2012. The Government signalled in the proposed new public service pay and reform deal negotiated with unions at Croke Park last month that it wanted to "substantially" reduce the number of State employees over the coming years.
However, it gave no specific details.
It said that this reduction would be implemented by new employment control frameworks covering various parts of the public service.
The new Civil Service employment control framework is the second of these documents to emerge.
Earlier this month, The Irish Timesrevealed that more than 1,500 posts in the health service are to go over the coming year under the terms of the new directive on employment numbers agreed by the Department of Finance and the Department of Health.
The employment control document for the health service says that the numbers employed should fall to 108,833 by the end of the year.
The document states that overall the Government is seeking to reduce the number of health service staff by 4,560 by the end of 2012, with 1,520 posts going this year.
