Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

There are eight. It has decreased in recent years because of staffing restrictions. There are eight in our unit but if one wants comparisons, there are 17 in the Northern Ireland unit. I know comparisons have been made with the Department of Social Protection and the Revenue Commissioners and their approaches as well. The investigation unit of the Department of Social Protection consists of staff of the Department and gardaí, and there are 111 people involved. The investigations and prosecutions division of the Revenue Commissioners has 150 people. Our unit is small.

The context I set out in the opening statement is important in the sense that the unit is only one element. It is difficult to separate the investigations division from the rest of our processes around inspections, controls and so on. A great many of our staff are involved in this. I mentioned that in the Revised Estimates there are the staff numbers for each of the four programmes. Under the animal health, food safety and plant health programme we identify 1,600 staff as being involved. That includes a huge swathe of our inspection staff, veterinary staff, many of our agricultural officers and the administrative staff who work with them. Members should see the eight staff in the SIU, or investigations division as it is now called, in that context.