Mr. Mark O'Mahony:

Previously, if we wanted to recruit staff, we had to go through the Public Appointments Service, PAS, which is under significant professional pressures of its own. In the last process in which we used the PAS, they said it would take 19 weeks, or five months, after which there would have to be a Garda vetting process and a notice period for successful candidates. It is hugely time consuming.

I do not say that as a criticism of the PAS. It is a fact of the system. We simply do not have that time. The PAS and the Commission for Public Service Appointments, CPSA, both said to us that we need the power to recruit directly. We applied for, and were successful in obtaining, a recruitment licence which means that we do not have to go through the PAS if we are looking for people up to principal officer, standard grade.