Ms Shirley Comerford:

We do not use exams for clerical officer grades so it is not an onerous application process. We can have a look at the numbers that have come through but 64 people have come through since 2016, as I alluded to in my opening statement. I am not expecting the numbers will be hugely different from that but we will certainly have a look at it and come back to the committee on that. On why we are running the Irish language-only competitions, it is about trying to address that issue of encouraging people to apply through Irish, making it as easy as possible for candidates to apply and having a look to see if this will make a difference. We are not sure at this stage because we have yet to run the competitions but it is being done in an effort to try to increase that candidate pool and encourage people to come forward and compete.