Mr. Francis O'Donnell:

We are understaffed in this area. I identified that when I came back to IFI a number of years ago. What we find is that our environmental officers in particular are, for want of a better phrase, becoming locked into the office reviewing planning applications and environmental assessments all of the time. In the past, they spent more time in the field and detected more issues. They took remedial action on more issues and they took more prosecutions if it was necessary to do so. As I said in my opening statement, the ecological world we are in is changing all of the time. It is getting very complex. We now find that our specialists are reviewing applications from other agencies and private companies and it is bogging us down. This is why Ms Bradley, my colleagues and I in the senior management team worked on a business case. We have identified it as weakness in the organisation.