Ms Caron McCaffrey:

It is not. About 30 years ago there was a massive increase in the number of prison officers in the State and over the past number of years there have been significant numbers of retirements in the service as people reach their 30 years of service. We have been undergoing an extensive recruitment campaign over the past number of years. Last year, we recruited 182 officers and in the previous year there were 85 new officers in the service.