Mr. Ger Deering:

At present, we are coping pretty well. In fairness to the staff, even though we have the increases we have had, we are closing 80% of complaints within three months and 92% within six months, which is pretty good. Our aim is always to close the complaints as informally as we can and as quickly as we can and get a resolution for the person.

No public body would ever come before the committee and say it has enough resources. There is no question we could do with more resources and it is something we are looking at. One of the areas we are pushing strongly on at present is that there has been a commitment since 2019 that prisoners and prison services should come within our remit. I believe strongly that they should come within our remit. That will probably require additional resources and we are looking at that.

I will not say we would not use more resources if we had them, but we are managing pretty well as we are. As we expand our role, there is no doubt we will need to have additional resources accordingly.