Professor Philip Lane:

Yes, the gap is roughly 10%. Our plan for 2017 is to increase the current number of staff to 1,800. The figure one year ago was 1,500. The way to think about this is that staff numbers will increase by approximately 20% between the end of 2015 and the end of 2017. To deliver a net increase of 20% in staff numbers is a significant challenge in a Dublin labour market that is pretty strong. This is a net increase of 300 at a time when the Central Bank is also losing staff, especially to the financial sector. The main message is that the Central Bank is growing and the more we grow, the more we can deliver on our plans and mandate. There has been a significant increase in staff compared with last year and we will deliver a further significant increase next year. This is definitely helping us to deliver a greater performance. As the Vice Chairman noted, there are various challenges facing the Central Bank and other parts of the public sector in filling vacancies.