Ms Deirdre Hanlon:

The Department has been engaged with the NTA for some time on its staffing position and helping it to work through its staffing needs, not just now but also into the future. We are working in the context of an agency whose capital budget will be increasing rapidly over the coming years. We are keen to ensure that it has appropriate staffing levels and appropriate approaches to dealing with the levels of money and investment it will have. One element of it is the question of the employment numbers and the status. As the authority explained, it has carried out a strategic staffing assessment, which we asked it to do. We asked it to look at this in some detail and to come up with a proper analysis of what is needed. In response to that, the Department has agreed a phasing arrangement whereby it is increasing its staff and changing the ratio over time. Part of that has been gone through already and it is working through it at present.