Disability Act 2005

SCHEDULE

Appeals Officer

Section 16.

1. The position of appeals officer shall be a position in the Civil Service, within the meaning of the Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Act 2004 , and a person shall not be appointed to be the appeals officer unless he or she has been selected for appointment to the position following a competition under that Act.

2. The term of office of the appeals officer shall be 5 years and a person may be reappointed to the office for a second or subsequent term.

3. The appeals officer shall be paid such remuneration and such allowances for expenses as the Minister, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, may from time to time determine.

4. The appeals officer—

(1) may at any time resign his or her office by letter addressed to the Minister and the resignation shall take effect on and from the date of his or her receipt of the letter,

(2) may at any time be removed from office by the Minister if, in the opinion of the Minister, he or she has become incapable through ill-health of effectively performing his or her functions or has committed stated misbehaviour.

5. The Minister may appoint such and so many persons to be members of the staff of the appeals officer as he or she considers necessary to assist the appeals officer in the performance of his or her functions and such members shall receive such remuneration and be subject to such other terms and conditions of service as the Minister may, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, determine.

6. Positions on the staff of the appeals officer shall be positions in the Civil Service (within the meaning of the Civil Service Regulation Act 1956 ).

7. (1) The appeals officer shall keep, in such form as may be approved of by the Minister, all proper and usual accounts of all moneys received or expended by him or her and all such special accounts (if any) as the Minister may direct.

(2) Accounts kept in pursuance of this paragraph in respect of each year shall be submitted by the appeals officer for audit to the Comptroller and Auditor General in the following year on a date not later than a date specified by the Minister and, as soon as may be after the audit, a copy of those accounts, or of such extracts from those accounts as the Minister may specify, together with the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the accounts, shall be furnished by the appeals officer to the Minister who shall cause copies of the documents so furnished to be laid before each House of the Oireachtas.

8. The appeals officer may delegate to any members of his or her staff any of his or her functions under this Act save those conferred by section 17 .

9. (1) Where the appeals officer is for any reason temporarily unable to act as the appeals officer or the office of the appeals officer is vacant, the Minister shall appoint a person to be the appeals officer for the duration of the inability or until an appointment is made in accordance with paragraph 1, as the case may be, and the person so appointed may perform all the functions conferred on the appeals officer by this Act.

(2) A person appointed under this paragraph shall hold office upon such terms and conditions as may be determined by the Minister after consultation with the Minister for Finance.