Following the economic crash the Government at central level introduced very firm controls over the numbers employed in the public service.
The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform put in place employment control frameworks for various parts of the public service – Civil Service, local authorities, health sector, etc ,with an overall aim of bringing down the numbers on the State's payroll.
In the budget in October 2014 the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin announced the formal ending of the Government's moratorium on recruitment in the public service. He said this would be achieved in a "targeted way".
Howlin said Government departments and agencies would receive greater autonomy to manage their staffing as part of public service reforms.
One concern about the loosening of the staff restrictions was that various parts of the public service would embark on uncontrolled recruitment. Given that close to 400 additional people were taken on by the health service every month last year, some may argue that this is exactly what has happened in the HSE or perhaps more than likely would happen in the HSE if the most recent trends continued unchecked.
At the same time there is a counter-argument that the health service experienced a 10per cent cut in staffing levels during the crash and additional personnel are badly needed if problems such as patients on trolleys and waiting lists are to be addressed.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation last week, for example, contended that in the medium-term a lack of bed capacity would have to be tackled if the trolley crisis was to be solved. However, bed capacity involves at its core securing and paying for the additional staff needed to operate these extra beds.
The HSE can also validly argue that in any organisation of 100,000 or so staff there will also be a set number of people who will leave in any year and who will have to be replaced.
Whatever about the rights and wrongs of the HSE’s recruitment policy over the last year or so, the new restrictions being introduced by the HSE will jar somewhat with Government promises to appoint thousands of additional staff in the public service in the future as the economy improves.
The new recruitment rules in the health service also again raise the issue of the transparency deficit in the HSE where key decisions are frequency taken in private with little or no public announcement.