Mr. John McKeon:

We are aware of that and the issues have been raised, but the advice we have remains the same. From one perspective, this would be seen as unfortunate. There is no "get out of jail" card on that basis. The contracts we give are new contracts each year. They are not contracts of indefinite duration. They have termination clauses so they can be terminated with three months' notice by either party. We have had cases where local employment service providers have terminated contracts themselves. We have had cases where there have been governance issues and they have had to terminate contracts as a result. Leaving aside the legal issue, which makes it absolutely unavoidable, there are also governance concerns about simply rolling things on and on. There have been cases with significant governance issues, even involving Garda investigations, which some members may be aware of. We have to take the issue of governance and proper procurement very seriously.