Assistant Principal Officer

THE ROLE

The Head of ICT Infrastructure reports to the Head of ICT Operations and is responsible for leading the teams that design, operate, maintain and develop the Courts Service’s core systems and network infrastructure.

This is a senior technical and operational leadership role within ICT Operations. The Head of ICT Infrastructure will ensure that infrastructure services are secure, resilient, well governed and capable of supporting both the day-to-day operation of the courts and the organisation’s wider modernisation programme. The role will work closely with Cyber Security Operations, Service Delivery, Courtroom Technology, the Digital and Data Units, enterprise and cloud architecture, and external service providers.

The role will be responsible for:

• Leadership and management of the infrastructure function, including the System Architect, Network Architect, systems administration teams, network administration teams and other technical resources assigned to infrastructure delivery.

• Operational ownership of core infrastructure services, ensuring that availability, performance, capacity, security, supportability and recoverability are actively managed.

• Infrastructure strategy and planning, translating organisational priorities, business requirements and architectural direction into clear technical roadmaps, investment proposals and delivery plans.

• Leading infrastructure programmes and projects, applying appropriate project-management disciplines and governance to establish clear scope, delivery plans, resources, milestones, dependencies, risks, budgets and accountabilities, and to drive delivery throughout the project lifecycle.

• Technical governance and assurance, ensuring that infrastructure designs are secure, resilient, scalable, supportable and aligned with agreed enterprise, security and cloud architecture.

• Maintaining strong operational discipline, including effective monitoring, alerting, patching, vulnerability remediation, backup and restoration, configuration management, privileged access, certificate management, documentation and lifecycle planning.

• Leading the response to major incidents and complex technical problems, ensuring effective coordination, timely escalation, clear communication, root-cause analysis and completion of corrective actions.

• Managing infrastructure change and service transition, ensuring that solutions delivered through projects and operational change are properly designed, tested, approved, documented and transitioned into support, with effective implementation and rollback arrangements.

• Strengthening disaster recovery and operational resilience, including maintaining recovery procedures, technical runbooks and dependencies, and overseeing regular backup restoration, failover and recovery exercises.

• Developing and sustaining organisational capability through workforce and succession planning, knowledge transfer, cross-skilling and performance management, while ensuring that specialist external resources supplement rather than replace internal ownership, accountability and retained knowledge

• Working in partnership with Cyber Security Operations to implement security controls, hardening standards, network segmentation, identity controls and remediation plans across the infrastructure estate.

• Managing infrastructure budgets, suppliers and contracts, ensuring that expenditure is controlled, supplier performance is actively managed, and investment decisions are supported by clear evidence of service need and risk.

The Head of ICT Infrastructure will be both technically capable and business focused and will be regarded as a source of authoritative advice on infrastructure services, operational resilience and technology risk. While the role is not expected to act as the principal technical specialist across every infrastructure domain, the successful candidate must have sufficient breadth and depth of knowledge to lead technical teams, challenge assumptions, evaluate recommendations and make sound decisions based on evidence and risk.

Critically, the role requires the ability to move beyond reactive problem solving and establish the planning, governance and operational disciplines needed to manage a complex technology estate effectively. The successful candidate will be expected to identify emerging risks, address technical debt, set clear standards, assign ownership and ensure that agreed actions are followed through to completion.

The successful candidate will be an experienced people leader who can set direction while supporting and developing technical specialists. They will communicate complex technical matters clearly to non-technical audiences and provide senior management with concise advice on service impact, operational risk, investment requirements and available options.

They will work closely with the Head of ICT Operations and other ICT leaders to ensure that infrastructure services support the organisation’s strategic priorities, that dependencies across technology functions are effectively managed, and that the Courts Service maintains a secure, resilient and sustainable foundation for its services.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Infrastructure Leadership and Strategy

• Lead the Infrastructure function, including the System Architect, Network Architect, systems and network administration teams, contracted specialists and any relevant service providers.

• Work with the Head of ICT Operations, the System Architect and the Network Architect to maintain infrastructure architectures, technical standards, design principles and roadmaps.

• Act as a senior point of accountability for the performance, resilience, supportability and continued development of the Courts Service infrastructure estate

• Develop infrastructure strategies, technical roadmaps and lifecycle plans aligned with organisational priorities, enterprise architecture, security requirements and the wider ICT strategy.

• Lead the planning and delivery of infrastructure programmes and projects, applying proportionate project-management disciplines to establish clear scope, governance, resources, milestones, dependencies, risks, budgets and accountabilities, and ensuring delivery through to operational handover and closure.

• Provide authoritative advice to senior management on infrastructure performance, risk, technical debt, investment requirements and technology options.

Systems Platforms and Data Centre Services

• Oversee the design, operation and lifecycle management of production and disaster recovery infrastructure, including Microsoft Hyper-V, Windows Server, Linux, Citrix (2203 or later), enterprise storage and SAN platforms.

• Ensure that compute, virtualisation, storage and application-delivery services are resilient, supportable, appropriately monitored and managed against capacity and performance requirements.

• Maintain effective technology refresh, licensing, vendor-support and obsolescence plans across the infrastructure estate.

Identity Microsoft 365 and End-User Computing

• Oversee the operation and development of Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, ManageEngine ADManager Plus, Group Policy, directory synchronisation, privileged access (PAM360) and related identity services.

• Provide infrastructure leadership for Microsoft 365, including Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint Online and OneDrive, and for the end-user computing estate, including Windows devices and endpoint services delivered through Microsoft Intune and Windows Autopilot.

• Ensure that Public Key Infrastructure, certificate services, Conditional Access, Microsoft Defender and associated identity and endpoint controls are securely and effectively integrated.

• Oversee the lifecycle, performance and continued development of end-user computing services, ensuring that devices, operating systems, application delivery and collaboration platforms are secure, supportable and aligned with the Courts Service’s hybrid technology architecture.

Network and Connectivity Services

• Oversee the design , operation and lifecycle management of national LAN, WAN, wireless and data centre networks, including Juniper switching, Government Networks connectivity and Azure ExpressRoute.

• Ensure the effective operation of Fortinet FortiGate firewalls, VPN services, Citrix NetScaler, network segmentation, and VXLAN and EVPN technologies.

• Oversee the continued development, performance and security of the national wireless estate, comprising approximately 1,300 Aruba access points across courthouse locations, together with Aruba ClearPass and 802.1X network access control and authentication services.

• Maintain appropriate monitoring, capacity management, resilience and security across the national network and wireless estate.

Service Management and Operational Discipline

• Establish and maintain effective controls for monitoring, patching, vulnerability remediation, configuration, privileged access, certificate management, documentation and technology lifecycle.

• Ensure that SolarWinds, Juniper Mist, Lakeside SysTrack and other operational tools provide effective visibility of service availability, performance, capacity and user experience.

• Ensure that incidents, requests, problems and changes are managed effectively through ServiceNow, supported by meaningful operational metrics and reporting.

• Define appropriate infrastructure service measures, operational dashboards and management reporting covering availability, incidents, capacity, patching, vulnerabilities, backup, change performance and lifecycle risk.

• Govern infrastructure change and service transition, ensuring that new and changed services meet agreed operational-acceptance criteria and have appropriate testing, documentation, support, implementation and rollback arrangements.

• Provide senior infrastructure leadership during major incidents, ensuring effective technical coordination, clear ownership, timely escalation and accurate communication to ICT and organisational leadership.

• Drive continuous service improvement by identifying recurring issues, control weaknesses, manual processes and opportunities for automation or standardisation

Backup Disaster Recovery and Operational Resilience

• Own the infrastructure contribution to business continuity and disaster recovery across production and disaster recovery environments.

• Ensure that Veeam backup and replication services are securely configured, monitored and aligned with agreed retention and recovery requirements.

• Working with the Head of Cyber Security, coordinate and execute regular restoration tests, infrastructure failover exercises and disaster recovery simulations, ensuring that identified weaknesses are addressed.

People Capability and Knowledge Management

• Set clear priorities, objectives, standards and accountabilities for internal staff, contractors and service providers operating within the augmented delivery model.

• Develop team capability through coaching, performance management, succession planning, cross-skilling and professional development.

• Ensure that specialist external resources supplement internal capability while operational ownership, essential knowledge and accountability remain within the Courts Service.

Procurement Supplier and Financial Management

• Manage infrastructure budgets, forecasts, licensing, technology refresh and investment proposals, ensuring that expenditure is controlled and linked to service need and risk.

• Lead or contribute to procurements for infrastructure products and services, including the development of technical requirements and evaluation criteria.

• Actively manage contractors and suppliers against agreed outcomes, service levels, contractual obligations and value-for-money expectations.

Other

• Maintain awareness of emerging infrastructure technologies, security threats and relevant industry and public-sector standards.

• Promote continuous improvement, standardisation, automation and the responsible adoption of new technologies.

• Perform other duties within the general scope and level of the role as may be required from time to time.

Note, the above is intended as a guide and is neither definitive nor restrictive.

4. ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS:

Qualifications

• A relevant third-level qualification in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering or a related discipline, OR an equivalent combination of recognised professional qualifications and relevant experience.

• Relevant industry qualifications in infrastructure, networking, cloud services, cybersecurity, architecture or IT service management would be advantageous.

Required Experience

Applicants should have at least 5 years' relevant and recent experience for this role. This experience should include:

• Proven experience leading and developing multidisciplinary infrastructure or technology teams in a complex enterprise environment.

• Experience managing highly available infrastructure services across multiple locations and technical domains, including networks, servers, virtualisation, storage, backup and recovery, identity, endpoint management and hybrid cloud services.

• Strong technical understanding of Microsoft enterprise technologies, including Windows Server, Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft 365 and related identity and endpoint services.

• Demonstrated experience in infrastructure strategy, architecture, capacity planning, technology lifecycle management, and addressing technical debt and obsolescence.

• Experience leading major incident response and complex problem resolution using effective monitoring, change control and IT service-management practices.

• Experience planning, implementing and testing backup, disaster-recovery and operational-resilience arrangements.

• Experience delivering significant infrastructure projects and service changes, and managing contractors, suppliers, procurements, contracts, budgets and value for money.

• Experience implementing infrastructure security controls and working with cybersecurity specialists, combined with strong analytical, decision-making and stakeholder-communication skills, including explaining complex technical matters to senior and non-technical audiences

Desirable Experience

The following skills and experience are desirable:

• Experience with a selection of technologies used within the Courts Service estate, including Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix, Veeam, SAN platforms, SolarWinds, Lakeside SysTrack, ManageEngine ADManager Plus, Microsoft Intune and Azure hybrid services.

• Experience with enterprise networking technologies including Juniper switching, Fortinet FortiGate, Citrix NetScaler, Aruba wireless, Aruba ClearPass, 802.1X, VXLAN and EVPN.

• Experience working in the Civil or Public Service, the justice sector, a regulated organisation or another operationally critical environment.

• Experience preparing technical strategies, business cases, governance reports and presentations for senior leadership.

5. APPLICATION PROCESS

Application should be made by logging into the advertisement link.

The closing date is 12 noon on 21 October 2026. Applications received after the closing date and time will not be accepted.

Candidates who do not hold or do not demonstrate the skills and experience will not be called for interview.

The admission of a person to a competition, or invitation to attend an interview, is not to be taken as implying the Courts Service is satisfied such a person fulfils the requirements of the competition or is not disqualified by law from holding the position and does not carry a guarantee that your application will receive further consideration.

It is important, therefore, for candidates to note that the onus is on them to ensure that they meet the eligibility requirements for the competition before attending for interview. If a candidate does not meet these essential entry requirements but nevertheless attends for interview, that candidate will be putting him or herself to unnecessary expense. It is important to note the onus is on applicants to ensure the eligibility requirements for the competition are met before attending for interview.

The Courts Service accepts no responsibility for communication not accessed or received by an applicant.

6. SELECTION METHODS

The Selection Process will involve:

• Shortlisting of candidates, on the basis of the information contained in their CV & Cover Letter (No more than 2 pages for the cover letter)

• a competitive first interview; and

• a competitive final interview which will include a presentation.

Assessment

The Courts Service will short list to select a group for interview who, based on an examination of the CV & cover letter, appear to be the most suitable for the position.

Those that demonstrate evidence at the required level will be called to interview.

Skills and capabilities

Candidates should demonstrate that they have the ability to carry out successfully the duties of the role, as well as the general skills and capabilities of an Assistant Principal Officer namely:

Building Future Readiness

“Delivering excellent public policy and services requires us to embrace change and innovation. We strive to create an inclusive customer centric strategy and vision that keeps pace with environmental, social and technological changes. Adopting an agile and digital-first approach, we will continually upskill, change and improve how we do things to meet current and future demands.”

Digital Focus, Innovation & Upskilling for the Future

Digital Focus

• Drives the digital-first agenda by ensuring that digital tools and IT solutions are explored and utilised.

Innovation & Continuous Improvement

• Delivers and promotes innovative, creative and practical solutions, with a commitment to continuous improvement.

• Tries new or different approaches and is willing to take appropriate risks, learn from mistakes and adapt.

INTERVIEWS

Interviews will take place in Dublin city centre. Interviews will be structured in format, with candidates asked to provide examples of the capabilities for the role as outlined in Section 6 of this document.

PRINCIPAL CONDITIONS OF SERVICE

The appointment is subject to the Civil Service Regulation Acts 1956 to 2005, the Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Act 2004 and any other Act for the time being in force relating to the Civil Service. Appointees will be subject to the Civil Service Code of Standards and Behaviour.

The appointment is to a permanent position in the Civil Service.

Salary

The salary scale for the position (rates effective from 1st June 2026) is as follows:

Assistant Principal Officer - Personal Pension Contribution Salary Scale:

€83,113.00, €86,173.00, €89,277.00, €92,390.00, €95,499.00, €97,292.00 (MAX), €100,427.00 (LSI ), €103,576.00 (LSI )

New entrants to the Civil Service will be appointed to the first point of the (PPC) salary scale.

The PPC pay rate applies when the individual is required to pay a Personal Pension Contribution (otherwise known as a main scheme contribution) in accordance with the rules of their main/personal superannuation scheme. This is different to a contribution in respect of membership of a Spouses’ and Children’s scheme, or the Additional Superannuation Contributions (ASC).