Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Are we sure about that? Some of the posts that we were looking at included clerical officers, executive officers, higher executive officers and administrative officers. They were not on the technical side. The idea seems to be to build up expertise in outside consultancies and not to have that expertise in the Department, even when it is cheaper to do so. It is important to establish the number the Department is working to and whether it has applied, but not received sanction, for posts.