Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Programme A shows the increased level of funding required because of additional staff complement. It is one of the areas where the budget is up. That is under the central case scenario. In a crash-out, the staff complement will be higher. We want to do this as efficiently as possible to avoid a situation where we have recruited contractually all of those staff and then find that the necessity did not materialise. Even as we stand here today that is a possibility. In a number of years' time I am sure there will be great fun before a public expenditure committee in the Oireachtas trying to explain what people in hindsight can say "Sure they were never going to crash out". We are trying to do it as financially efficiently as possible. This is why some of the staffing is through redeployment, some is using former staff on short-term contracts and some involves additional staff. It is a mix of opportunities.