Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I accept that. The Minister of State's clarification is welcome. It is good to know that he will be keeping a close eye on this. With regard to the powers the person has, it is tough for someone who is acting up to have all the authority because he or she is only in the position on an acting basis, if the Minister of State knows what I mean. There is nothing specific in the legislation about this, but I would welcome the Minister of State's thoughts on backfilling positions. Very often, when a person acts up, he or she does not act up 100% in the role and still retains some of his or her previous duties. I am conscious that these are very important jobs for which a focus would be required and I wonder if there might be something the Minister of State could do about insisting on a backfill for a person who is acting up. I accept what he is saying about the length of time, but the fear would be that while the six months is put in as the upper limit, it could end up as a target rather than the outlier. That is my main concern about that. I welcome the fact that the Minister of State will keep an eye on it.

Can the Minister of State comment on backfilling a position so that the person involved can actually act up 100%? I know of many cases where a person has been asked to act up but where he or she was not fully able to give up his or her previous duties, so he or she ended up trying to do both jobs and did neither successfully. These are important roles at a very senior level. The Minister of State has almost made my point for me in saying that it could take up to three months because of the level of responsibility these people will have. The level they are at could require three months to fill the vacancy on the basis that they may have to give notice and so forth. I accept that, but, equally, there must be some support in respect of backfilling those posts for the persons concerned. I am not sure that it is appropriate for legislation, but I would welcome the Minister of State's views. Perhaps he would put on the record what the intention would be with regard to funding backfill and so forth.