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8 1998

COURTS SERVICE ACT, 1998

PART V

Staff of Service

Service to have unified administrative structure.

22. —The Service shall have a unified organisation and structure.

Staff of Service.

23. —(1) The Board may appoint such number of persons to be members of the staff of the Service as may be approved by the Minister with the consent of the Minister for Finance.

(2) The Board shall determine the grades of staff of the Service and the numbers of staff in each grade as may be approved by the Minister with the consent of the Minister for Finance.

(3) A member of the staff of the Service shall be a civil servant in the Civil Service of the State.

(4) The appropriate authority (within the meaning of the Civil Service Commissioners Act, 1956 , and the Civil Service Regulation Acts, 1956 to 1996) in relation to the staff of the Service shall be the Board.

(5) In this section “civil servant in the Civil Service of the State” means a person holding a position in the Civil Service of the State.

Transfer of staff to Service.

24. —(1) Every person to whom Schedule 1 relates shall, on the establishment day, be transferred to and become a member of the staff of the Service.

(2) Every member of the staff of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform designated by order of the Minister for the purposes of this section shall, on being so designated, be transferred to and become a member of the staff of the Service.

(3) The Minister may make an order for the purposes of subsection (2) but shall not do so without first having—

(a) notified in writing any recognised trade union or staff association concerned of the Minister's intention to do so, and

(b) considered, within such time as may be specified in the notification, any representations made by such trade unions or staff associations in relation to the matter.

Terms and conditions of transferred staff.

25. —(1) Except in accordance with a collective agreement negotiated with any recognised trade union or staff association concerned, a person who is transferred by subsection (1) or (2) of section 24 to the staff of the Service shall not, while in the service of the Service, receive a lesser scale of pay or be made subject to less beneficial terms and conditions of service than the scale of pay to which he or she was entitled and the terms and conditions of service to which he or she was subject immediately before the transfer of that person.

(2) Until such time as the scale of pay and the terms and conditions of service of a person transferred by subsection (1) or (2) of section 24 to the staff of the Service are varied by the Service, with the agreement of the Minister and the Minister for Finance, following consultation with any recognised trade union or staff association concerned, the scale of pay to which he or she was entitled and the terms and conditions of service, restrictions, requirements and obligations to which he or she was subject immediately before the transfer of that person shall continue to apply to him or her and may be applied or imposed by the Service while he or she is a member of the staff of the Service, and no such variation shall operate to worsen that scale of pay or those terms or conditions of service applicable to such person immediately before the transfer of that person, except in accordance with a collective agreement negotiated with any recognised trade union or staff association concerned.