Mr. Anthony Owens:

The pay commission told us that after the pay cut was brought in October 2012, there was a collapse in the number of people applying for consultant posts. There was a slight increase from 2015 onwards, when the IMO negotiated a new-entrant pay scale. There was an increase from one person per post to two people, or thereabouts, per post. Those are the facts that we know. We can also surmise that the longer this situation continues, then the more people will put down roots abroad and may not come back. We need to get this process started, at the very least. As Dr. Sadlier said, there will then be a lead-in period involved in getting back the people we lost abroad and who we need back to Ireland.