Mr. Fergal Mulligan:

I am familiar with ComReg and its resourcing and it is bursting at the seams with work at the moment. It is continually looking for more resources from my colleagues. Representatives of ComReg informed this committee recently that it had been allocated 40 or 50 extra staff who they are currently recruiting. It is a difficult environment trying to recruit people in the current market. ComReg is not resourced to deal with this project of half a million homes and a USO designation laid down by legislation. Any primary legislation that would require ComReg to do that would bring with it significant additional costs for ComReg.