Mr. Doncha O'Sullivan:

If you applied in the summer of last year, if we are processing cases in about ten months on first stage then we would probably have just dealt with your case in March and now you have a right to appeal. Those cases are now starting to materialise in the appeal-stage work stream. We are working very closely with the appeal stage people to try and anticipate when they are going to see this bulge of cases, for want of a better word, coming through. While they would have been geared up to deal with a certain number of cases last year, they actually had more resources last year than they needed to deal with what they had. We expect that by the end of this year, they will need more resources in order to be able to deal with the increase in cases that is working through the system.