Mr. Donncha Ó Súilleabháin:

We get relatively few of them. To be honest, when these queries come in they attract attention, and it is very easy for us to quickly deploy somebody to address it. If the underlying query is a complex one or if one would be waiting for a long time for a decision on a case on its original merits, that is, course, different.

On the recruitment question, we work in the main with the Public Appointment Service, PAS, for recruitment. We do a small amount of direct recruitment but it is mainly done through PAS. PAS was before this committee recently and debated some of these issues. Like other Departments, we will be studying this new legislation. PAS will already have spoken about the types of specialist panels it has and the numbers coming through that. It is fair to say that the numbers coming through are a good deal lower than the 20% target. There is clearly a job of work to be done about that. To the extent that this will provide more staff who can come to us ready to use Irish, that is welcome, but a substantial amount of work needs to be done to reach that target. Mr. Ó Cearúil has been involved in some of these discussions and can elaborate further.