Mr. Tony O'Brien:

I will give some detail because I would like to be clear. The fact that someone is employed on an administrative scale does not mean he or she is not at the coalface. They include people who check patients in clinics and those who support the public health nurses and consultants. A couple of years ago when I visited a wide range of services, one of the chief things paramedical and specialist staff said to me was that they were spending far too much of their precious time carrying out back-office functions which in the past were done by administrative and clerical people whose posts were completely frozen during the worst of the recession. There has been a conscious effort to improve skill mix so that professional staff can spend their time applying their professional skills. That is part of the answer. Ms Mannion will give the committee, through its secretariat, the full response to the question.