Fórsa’s Civil Service divisional executive has agreed to widen a proposed HEO bilingual interdepartmental competition to the wider public service. It says this is necessary as recent competitions for Irish speakers have promoted too few applications from civil servants.

Fórsa has agreed with DPER that the extension of this competition to the wider public service will not act as a precedent for other competitions. But it sees the approach as a more suitable alternative to the original management proposal for an open competition.