Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The DPP indicated it is not the case that he will not be able to function, but that he will be forced to hand back District Court prosecutions to the Garda. He went on to say that this was "not desirable". We do not have provision for making up the 3.5% increase that currently stands in the pay agreement and which is to fall due from September. We must continue to monitor the situation as best we can with the Chief State Solicitor.

The Chief State Solicitor's office has four vacancies at present. However, following a review of that office, an additional 16 staff were approved in January 2007. The office has a staff complement of 249 whole-time equivalents. The DPP's office states that it is important to emphasise the Director is satisfied there is no danger at present that his office will be unable to deal with the prosecution file submitted to him. He made the point that he felt that problems might manifest themselves towards the end of 2009 and onwards, as he outlined in the statement to which I referred. We will continue to monitor the situation and see how that pay commitment evolves.

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