Mr. Peter Ray:

Regarding the challenges on the rate of pay, for the training grade the salary is approximately €25,000. What has to be considered is that people are entering a bachelor of science degree programme over three years. The difficulty is that we generally get people into the organisation who have a bit of life experience. It is the type of profession where people need life experience. We cannot have school leavers coming into the type of job we do; that is not going to work. It can be economically challenging for a lot of people to consider this career. Starting on a salary of €25,000, getting a bachelor of science degree, moving to a salary of just over €30,000 after qualification and then having an 11-year wait to move through the pay scales is difficult. People may have a strong desire to enter this profession, but the difficulty is economic.