Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:

Again, I have already gone into this in some detail in the update on the chapters I provided to the committee. Obviously, it was flagged in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report. We carried out our own assessment of practice in local offices and on foot of that, we certainly concluded that there was work to be done in terms of updating and reissuing guidelines to deciding officers and recovery officers. With the new legislation that was brought to bear and only signed into law less than one month ago, which relates to the recovery of up to 15%, we are in the course of briefing and training our recovery officers in respect of the approaches to be taken not only with new debt incurred but also re-examining existing debt on our books with a view to seeing how we can improve recovery rates where such recovery can be effected.

The committee will appreciate that in a number of instances people who are overpaid and have a debt are no longer on our books because they have got out of payment for whatever reason. The overpayment and debt, however, do not die. We take the ultimate sanction of recovering from estates. The debt remains live and valid in every circumstance.