Ms Niamh O'Donoghue:

Absolutely, we are spending taxpayers' money. I am in no doubt about our responsibilities in this space. I also have a responsibility to deliver income support services and activation services. I must balance the three in the context of an overall employment control framework, which is Government policy on reducing the numbers in the public service. We have been the beneficiaries of redeployed employees into vacancies in the Department. We must try to balance a number of resources by delivering the full range of services we always had to deliver, including the full range of community welfare officer services, in the context of a declining number of staff. We have maintained the numbers involved in serious fraud investigation and we have worked to ensure the support and targeting of serious fraud investigations becomes much more refined so that we get a better effect. I would like to put more people into the area but that means taking them out of another area.