AP Higher 2026

Apparently the recruitment is demand based so the psychometric test may not be utilised.

Last internal AP higher campaign in 2023 only shortlisted a little over 100 people.

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2025-06-12/304/

Also I noticed that there's no requirement to be an AP for two years. Only need to be in the civil service for 2 years. This will definitely encourage more people to apply than 2023. But the good news is that most of my peers will not apply as those 3 departments are guaranteed to be a lot more busier with more in office days than other departments. I'm hoping everyone thinks like this and didn't bother to apply. 😂

Yes I believe so.

No nothing yet

I think the first we will hear will be shortlisting results

Anyone have any idea how many posts on offer and in what areas?

No idea. I am not even sure at this stage if there will be many shortlisted as they have launched two standard AP competitions after this internal campaign. Has anyone heard back from public jobs?

Not good practice to be waisting people's time or giving false hope. They're are vacancies and mobility opportunities, just seems like public jobs are not actively recruiting

It just feels very wasteful of everyone's time, effort, money.

I wouldn't be surprised at how much pressure it's putting on standalone vacancies at PO as well.

I see a lot of internal hires, lateral movement etc.

For what it's worth, I've sent an update request through the portal on my puoc jobs account. I think it's over two months since the closing date now, which is a bit ridiculous.

Just got a response - basically they are still shortlisting, and they'll let us know when they're finished! Not super-informative, but there you go.