Mr. John Moran:

Mr. McCarthy might kick me from the side on this one, but I mentioned the struggle concerning information technology that is available to us. There is a certain duplication of effort when things are too manual. When one is moving from one spreadsheet to another, one must double-check stuff. If one had a single, integrated system, we could have a lot more information. We could optimally have a better sense of where forecasting needs to go by drawing on information sources from other areas. That technology does not exist in the system at the moment.
As for the more intellectual challenge of doing this, I think we are in very good shape. When I took over as Secretary General, we were fortunate that a large number of institutions volunteered staff to us. It was simply not possible to hire staff at the necessary speed so that we could work pro bonoin the Department and train up people internally. It takes some time to do that.
During Ireland's EU Presidency we had a similar interchange of people who came in from the private sector and worked with the Department. We still have some work to do in encouraging and allowing more people - who have grown up in the Department and have it as a future career - to spend some time externally in other environments and vice versawith other people. That mix of skill sets will improve the overall position.