Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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The witnesses are very welcome to the meeting. I know Mr. McCarthy will not agree with me because I have suggested this to him before, but from the outside it certainly looks like the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is now very overloaded and in emergency mode. That is understandable, given the scale of what the Department has taken on. My concern would be the Department is not getting support from other Departments. I wanted to say that to begin.

Between 2020 and 2021, an additional 121 staff joined the Department. Additional functions also went to the Department. What is the current staff complement of the Department? Mr. McCarthy told us he is borrowing from other functions within the Department to make payments. What is the current staff complement?