Efforts to establish how many retired public servants are re-employed by State agencies could create a "new bureaucracy", Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin has claimed.

He deflected calls by Fianna Fáil spokesman Sean Fleming to establish "the extent of the issue". The Minister disputed Mr Fleming's claim that the re-hiring of retired staff through employment agencies "is far more widespread than simply based on exceptional circumstances".

The Government had reduced the number working in the public service and did not want to put new burdens on them “unless there is an identifiable problem, which I do not believe is very widespread”. However he would “reflect” on Mr Fleming’s comments.

Mr Fleming said it was a serious matter for many, especially younger people looking for jobs, when people “retired on full gratuities with lump sums and pensions can walk back in the following week through an agency or on a contract basis.”

Mr Howlin said “the overall policy approach is that all appropriate alternatives should be fully examined prior to the engagement of any retired public servant”. Any re-engagement should only take place on a “limited and restricted basis, and be related to a particular set of circumstances”.

Mr Fleming called on Mr Howlin to “take legal advice about introducing regulations to oblige the agencies to give the PPS numbers to the HSE or wherever they are working”. That would allow the Government to establish the number of former employees back working in the same employment but now through an agency.

He highlighted the “scandal” of Irish Water where people who had retired from local authorities with their gratuities, pensions and lump sums moved into the new authority “to get a bonus on top of that”.

He said the Minister would tell him he could not do anything about that “but somewhere along the line the Government needs to govern the country”.

Mr Howlin said a unique set of circumstances were involved with Irish Water where a new public utility was being established. And it was not possible “simply to debar people” from public sector work just because they had worked there before.