Mr. Brendan Walsh:

The average waiting time nationally is currently 19 weeks. That is higher than was the case when we were most recently before the committee. We have, however, increased our number of permanent testers by 30%. We have brought an extra 30 people on board. We see a need to go further than that. What happens - and this also applies to a question asked earlier by Deputy Carey - is that we sometimes move testers around or people get sick. Within the service at the moment, people are on statutory leave, including maternity leave and long-term illness leave. That can, unfortunately, impact the service. We try to compensate by moving people from other jurisdictions when it is feasible to do so. I am sure the committee will understand that because of the pressure the service is under at the moment, to move resources is a big challenge.