Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

It is certainly open to the committee to invite the Public Appointments Service in. The service has a Vote so it is within the remit of the committee. The Deputy asked a question around the correspondence to find out what the net points that arise are. I am aware that there are resource constraints on the Public Appointments Service. We have to queue up to get in with the competition. The Public Appointments Service has the option of issuing a licence to a public body to allow it to run its own competition but it must be done through a scheme that is determined by the Public Appointments Service. Obviously, the focus of that is that no undue influence or preferential treatment is given to anybody. It must be an open and fair competition.