Dr. Orlaigh Quinn:

Obviously, we distinguish between the Department and the offices. They are the civil servants. The agencies, the IDA and EI, are recruited separately within their recruitment processes. There is no problem getting the committee those data. From the Civil Service perspective, vacancy tends to be at around 3%.

Our sick leave has gone down during Covid for a variety of reasons. I suspect it is because people can work from home. From what I mentioned earlier, it is clear that our productivity levels, I am proud to say, have gone through the roof. I am very pleased with that.

On the point the Deputy made about maternity cover, we are very positive in terms of replacing people who are on maternity where necessary. As the Deputy knows, the general practice is that such people are not replaced, but we look on that very much on a job perspective basis. Where somebody is in a priority area, we replace that person. We sometimes carry that vacancy somewhere else or we increase our staff budget to replace that person for a while. It is very much on a needs-must basis.