Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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That is not really a target. The numbers were going down overall. We want recruitment to go up. It is a budgetary allocation more than a target. At the start of the year, the Department asks what we expect to get. We might want more, but realistically what are we expected to get? It is essentially a money question more than anything else. That is what happened there. The number we are actually at is 7,600. We were hoping for a net 400. It is not a target but a budgetary allocation. It is a cheque from the Department of public expenditure to cover the costs we expect to incur. If we got more people in, we would be back to the committee looking for a Supplementary Estimate. It is a simple as that.