Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Mr. O'Brien has come back to us with clarifications this week and has explained why he did not identify one of the individuals as still working within the public service. He relied on the information within the system, which is not a reliable mechanism given that, as he told us, a different staff number is allocated each time somebody has a new engagement. Is the system capable of searching for a name? I know there can be duplications in names but it certainly seems to be a very flawed process if one just looks at an original payroll and at whether somebody has retired. It should be presumed that there is a possibility of re-engagement, particularly if people have retired early, for example.