Ms Eadaoin Collins:

We are taking into account some of the lessons learned from Judge Aylmer's findings as well. We are transferring the office to an agency to enhance its autonomy. One of the shortcomings identified by the judge was that in terms of staffing and skills the office, at that time, did not have the necessary depth of experience in criminal investigations. There is a specialised skillset required within the agency. It will need to have greater autonomy to recruit those specialised resources and also to retain them. As stated by Ms Greene, currently the mobility structure is such that people can move into the office and out into the Department. The staff of the ODCE, when fully established as an agency, will be dedicated resources for that agency. It is about increasing the agency's ability to recruit and retain staff and enhancing its resources beyond what is currently available to it. The agency will have greater control over the deployment of its resources and so it will be flexible enough to restructure itself to cope with, for example, a significant increase in caseload, as occurred in the office in 2008. There will also be a dedicated and specialised career path within the agency. Also, as an agency of the Department, it will have sanction to replace staff on a like-for-like basis. It will have the ability, subject to the consent of the Departments of Business, Enterprise and Innovation and Public Expenditure and Reform, to appoint its own staff and determine their grades.