Ms Emily O'Reilly:

In recent years, or decades even, when we have been readying ourselves for this, every three years we make a strategic plan and every strategic plan has a piece in it about how we cope with new bodies coming under remit, and that includes the Office of the Information Commissioner as well. A few years ago, partly as a result of the decentralisation policy decision and when our remit expanded in the health area, we got 25 new staff. We also did a major piece of change management. I am not sure if that is the right term. I am never quite up to speed on these terms. Basically, we took our processes apart, examined them and put them back together again with the result that we greatly increased our efficiency and productivity and we are now able to deal with 30% more cases than we had been. In six months, assuming the Bill goes through and people come to us with complaints, obviously they can only complain about things that have happened following the adoption of the legislation and, therefore, there will be a lag time. We have the capacity to deal with a reasonably significant number of additional complaints but, no more than any other Ombudsman's office, when it starts or when it take on additional bodies, we cannot say how many new complaints we will have to address. At the moment, we are saying to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform that we can cope with the staffing we have but in the fullness of time we may look for additional staff.