Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

Yes. Practically everything, except for the education sector, where there is a very particular problem, is due at the end of December. Therefore, we are looking to carry out all of the work in the first six months of the year and that physically cannot be done. There would be an opportunity to take everybody from the reporting side and put them into the process but then that leaves us with no reporting work being done and that area is already under strain. To be quite honest, it is the reporting work that is generally more of a focus for the committee, rather than the financial statements. We try to do as much work during the year of account as we can in the bigger entities, where it is efficient to do so, on an interim basis and to finish the audits of the financial statements of the bigger entities with higher turnovers and more critical issues so that they are done in the first half of the year. We also contract out work. The field work is actually done by contractors on our behalf but we still have to review that work when it comes in and review the findings. Ultimately, I issue the audit opinion, not the contractors. We contract in staff so as to boost the numbers available during the first half of the year. We also have a general prohibition on staff taking leave in the first half of the year. We are doing everything we can to maximise the resource that is available for the audit in the first half of the year but inevitably, then, it is the second half of the year, at management level, before we can turn to reviewing the financial statements of the smaller entities.