Mr. Brendan Walsh:

With regard to the sites the Deputy named, based on the latest information I have, Youghal is leading one of the highest times in the country at 26 days. Littleisland in Cork is now at 20 days. It was much higher in recent weeks but there has been significant refurbishment and reworking at that facility. Cahir is at 25 days. What I can say is that all of these figures are a significant improvement on where they were when I was here last. They are not good enough. That is why we are holding Applus to account. What I can say is that we will have the service back within the national service level agreement by the end of this year. We have made significant inroads, as has Applus, in recent weeks to improve the lead times. I can tell the Deputy, particularly with regard to Littleisland, that at one point four weeks ago my data showed it was at 35 days. This has been returned to 20 days.

An additional 50 resources - Mr. Synnott referenced 48 - are on their way from the Philippines. When I initially sat in front of the committee in October, we had 551 testers in the service. In the coming weeks the service will grow to approximately 675 testers. They are spread throughout the country. I will let Mr. Synnott speak about where the plan for the new testers is coming in. I have in front of me the figures for what we have seen, particularly last week, with regard to Cork and it is not in line with our average. It is above the average. We have other sites that are better. Clearly a specific effort is required in Cork in the coming weeks to reduce this figure and keep it down, and we will keep it down.