Mr. Colin Bray:

I thank the Deputy for his question. That issue was raised in the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The amount refers to a payment of €30,000 between four ordnance survey staff members. As for the Comptroller and Auditor General's note, there are two separate elements to be addressed within the figure. The first is a payment of €20,000 to a marketing expert as per the terms of a contractual commitment and the second element is a payment totalling €10,000, which was paid to three ordnance survey staff members. If I may elaborate on the first point regarding the payment of €20,000 and going back to my opening statement and OSi's dual remit, we are fully dependent on our commercial revenue for our funding model. As referred to in the opening statement and given the downturn in the economy and the economic challenge we faced in respect of our commercial revenues, we were obliged to ensure that we were able to manage the commercial revenues for the running of the organisation. It was a necessity that we were obliged to bring in external commercial acumen to the organisation on the business and marketing side to ensure we could sustain that downturn in the economy and could grow. The sum of €20,000 relates to the procurement of a marketing expert for the organisation on a fixed-term temporary contract. That expert came into the organisation to carry out activities such as development and mentoring of business staff, the management of the development of our online business and the growth thereof and to grow the tourism and leisure product part of our business. The remuneration in question, that is, the €20,000, was part of a commercial contract for this individual. The €20,000 related to performance-related activities. The moneys involved were aligned with the costs of such expertise on the open market. A decision was made that a percentage of that salary would be related to performance measures, which were evaluated on a quarterly basis. Consequently, the €20,000 relates to that performance-related measure.