County manager agrees to cut amount of annual leave

Meath County Manager Tom Dowling is one of a number of city and county managers who have agreed to voluntarily surrender some of their annual leave. It has been agreed by the County and City Managers Association (CCMA) that the managers have volunteered to take no more than 32 days' holidays, following controversy over senior local authority staff holidays over the past week. It was revealed last week that some senior local authority staff around the country were entitled to take more than two months' holidays. However, this was not the case in Meath. Here, the county manager and directors of service are allowed 36 days' annual leave, and two privilege days at Christmas. Junior staff in the council get 23 days. The time off compares with 33 days given to secretaries general of government departments, and 25 days for chief executives in the private sector. Former Meath Assistant County Manager, Joe Crockett, who is now county manager in Kilkenny, was one of those entitled to 40 days' annual leave. The CCMA has now issued a statement, saying local authority bosses had agreed to take no more than 32 days "on a voluntary basis". The move comes ahead of plans to standardise annual leave across all grades of local authority staff by December. These plans have been rejected by unions and referred to the implementation body overseeing the Croke Park Agreement, which deals with reform of the public service. According to a CCMA statement; "Managers have agreed that a maximum of 32 days of annual leave will be implemented on a voluntary basis with immediate effect while this issue continues to be progressed under the Croke Park Agreement. The standardisation of annual leave across the sector was referred by the trade union side to the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) where, unfortunately, agreement could not be reached. "The LRC has now referred the matter to the National Implementation Body for clarification and the CCMA looks forward to an early determination."