Ms Hilary Murphy-Fagan:

Again, overpayments arise outside the NSSO. If we in the NSSO are not notified of an absence in time, the office may have already run the payroll. It is not our ambition to have overpayments and we continue to work with all Departments and offices to try to minimise it. Our values are very important to us and our service and commitment to excellence is absolutely critical to who we are. My staff in my office are absolutely key. Their commitment is absolutely phenomenal and they work very hard to try to prevent overpayment occurring. It is impossible to have zero overpayments, given the volume and scale of the transactions on which we work.