Mr. Bernard Gloster:

It is.

Obviously, the Secretary General is the Accounting Officer. I am the accountable officer, so I do not want to fudge, but it is absolutely the case that it is my job to control what I have and to spend what I have. I gave one of Deputy McAuliffe's colleagues a brief example earlier. Members will see it in the headlines this morning. Between 2019 and 2022, the highest percentage growth among staff grades in the HSE was in management-administration. I do not want to be in any way disparaging towards those grades - I come from them - but that was the area of highest growth. This year, an additional 1,400 jobs were given to those grades, We have already exceeded that 1,400 by a couple of hundred, which we cannot afford. We also have management-administration staff in on an agency basis. I put a control on that. I put a final control on it yesterday for the remainder of the year. The response to that - and I respect the rights of trade unions and, again, I do not want to be in any way disparaging of anybody - is that I face industrial action at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning. It is my job to say "No", but I have to manage the processes by means of which I interact.