Mr. Tom O'Mahony:

In most cases, they were Coast Guard radio officers who had retired. We had been unable to recruit replacement radio officers for a period of time. For safety reasons, the Coast Guard desks could not be left unmanned. It was necessary for a period of time, therefore, to bring back retired personnel to cover these posts until replacements could be recruited. The replacement staff have been recruited and the payment is no longer being made. A similar situation arose in the air accident investigation unit where there were delays in recruiting new staff. Because of the amount of work involved, it was necessary to bring back one person on a temporary basis. There are other relatively small amounts where a person would have been asked to chair a group or do a particular piece of work for a payment of €1,000 or €2,000 on a contractual basis. These payments are included in the figures because they are retired civil servants.