Mr. Bernard Gloster:

If there are permanent vacancies there is no reason they cannot be considered for permanent positions. The issue with a permanent vacancy is because of the recruitment licence. It has to be advertised in terms of a public competition. There is no departing from that. We want to get in ahead to attract graduates because we are competing with other agencies for social workers. That is the first point. The second is that we have undertaken, with Maynooth university, a trial sponsorship programme this year where we are sponsoring a number of students. They will come and work for us at the end of their training. We will have to evaluate that and see how that goes. That is costing us approximately €150,000 or €160,000 as a sponsorship mechanism but it may be the route we have to go. It has been used in other health disciplines across the world.