Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will make a few other general remarks. At 1 January 2011, the agency's outstanding liability was €999,000 million and now it is €1.2 billion. The estimated liability has gone up 36% in the past three years. Mr. Breen has said that the agency's main objective is to ensure the expenses relating to the management of cases are contained. Another objective is to work with the authorities at reducing costs. If these are the agency's two main objectives, it has failed on them. We thought the agency was set up to reduce the figure of over €1 billion down to between €800,000 and €600,000, but the figure is going in the wrong direction and Mr. Breen is presiding over that.

I know he will say he has no control over the number of claims, but the number of claims outstanding each year is rising. Therefore, the agency is not even remotely near dealing with the number of claims being made. The claims are just piling up, which extends the timescale for cases. The liability to the State is rising every year, 36% of an increase in the past three years alone. I thought the agency was to reduce that.