Ms Justina Corcoran:

My understanding is that any sign-off on staff numbers increasing or staff headcount is done through the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, so even if we provided a pot of money to the local authorities for whatever reason, we would have to issue a letter of comfort to say that money was going to be paid to it on a regular basis so it could go ahead and then get that sanction from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. I assume there is a similar process in place with SEAI but we do not manage the headcount there.