Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Why did the RSA only start advertising in July? If the number fell from 595 to 552, therein lies a serious element of the problem. Yet, the RSA only started advertising for staff last July and only applied for the visas for the Filipino nationals to come in in September. Of the 22 staff from Spain, 12 are only on the plane over today. With due respect, this does not stand up. There are 31,605 on the priority list which, added to the 355,985, is roughly 388,000. I have done a quick calculation. The authority is doing 30,000 per week. That is 60,000 if you get people for two weeks. That means you have to clear a backlog of nearly 330,000 people on the waiting list for tests. How will that be done?