Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)

I welcome the witnesses and congratulate Mr. Sisk. He may know I worked for the Marine Institute 25 years ago. I have many great memories from working there at that time. I worked there when it was in Dublin, before it moved over to Galway. One of the issues, and this feeds into the previous comment, was certainly present there at that time. It was not just the staffing levels but also the type of staffing contract that was there.

There were very few full-time, permanent contracts. They tended to be two-year or three-year contracts and it was based on whatever European funding was available at the time. There was no certainty for staff. It was difficult to get mortgages or anything like that to put down roots and know where they would be in a number of years. Has that improved? When the Marine Institute was set up, it was a fisheries-based organisation but its remit has broadened to general research and ecosystem services. Has there been an equivalent increase in the number of full-time staff available to the institute? Is that sort of contract still an issue?