Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I would be loath to say to Deputy Gilmore that we will ever reach a position where there are no more demands for staff in this area. It seems to be almost endless every year. With the exception of the range of initiatives in the criminal justice sector that are being considered, all of the other demands have been met, but there is a request for a number of additional staff — it is not yet clear what number — to deal with changes we have made in the House to the criminal justice sector. We are now up to a complement — there has been a very large increase over the past four or five years — of 204.

The Chief State Solicitor's office has recruited additional staff that were also approved last year. Currently, it has a staff complement of 249 full-time equivalents. A number of vacancies exist in the office and it is in the process of filling them in the normal way. I understand that there are 17 vacancies at present covering posts at solicitor, legal executive, administrative and clerical levels. The office is working with the Public Appointments Service and the Department of Finance regarding the options available for recruiting these staff, but this movement and turnover is not unusual. Many people go into those offices to gain experience for a number of years and move on, so there is a lot of career movement in the area. The Chief State Solicitor's office complement is 249 and the DPP's is 204, which are very sizable increases above where we were just four or five years ago.

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