Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

A public body has to apply to the Public Appointments Service for a licence to permit it to go to the market and carry out recruitment.

Let us say the entity doing the recruitment is DkIT, as we were discussing this morning, or it could be my own office if we were to apply for that licence. The public body would have to satisfy the Public Appointments Service that it will run the competition to the same standards of independence and assurance. There would have to be an independent panel to carry out the recruitment exercise. The Public Appointments Service would have to be satisfied that the panel carrying out the interviews would not be interfered with. The recruitment agency would then do the advertising, perhaps source the interviewers and run any aptitude tests or whatever might be required. That would be the professional skill set that we would expect to get from the Public Appointments Service in any event. If the service is under pressure and one would have to wait too long, it is possible to avail of the framework agreement to provide the technical assistance.