Mr. Eddie Taaffe:

That process has been under way for a number of months in the authorities outside the four Dublin authorities. It is well under way and a significant number of the 211 staff have either started or are about to be recruited, with job offers going out, etc.

With construction coming back and the private sector in particular ramping up, it is a bit of a challenge to find suitably experienced staff and get them to join local authorities. Most, if not all, the job offers are for permanent staff as opposed to contract staff. That will make it much more attractive for experienced people to join the local authority sector. That process is under way and, as Mr. Curran has said, the exercise is about to conclude for the four Dublin authorities in terms of both social and affordable housing.

For example, we had a meeting with Dublin City Council a few days ago and it has put in place a staffing structure and different teams to deliver different mechanisms.

For example, one of the mechanisms is they will ramp up a team to deliver and focus on competitive dialogue and on the public-private partnership bundles as well, so that all of these delivery streams can be fully teamed up and fully resourced. Given the scale of the challenge for the larger authorities, we need every single delivery mechanism to deliver 100% to reach the targets. Those plans are in place, we know what they are and they are being activated.