Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

——are coming from other Departments, processes have to be gone through to ensure they are placed because none of them is being recruited from outside the public sector. I appreciate the necessity of ensuring that people are put into position as quickly as possible and to have them trained. As I indicated, in the next two to three weeks there will be an additional 19 and we are hopeful the next 39 will be in place very quickly after that. We are keeping the position under review to determine the additional staff that are needed.

The Deputy spoke about towns throughout the country where delays of 12 and 13 weeks were being experienced. In fact, out of all the offices, of which there are more than 60, only eight have waiting times of over ten weeks. While I accept that is a particularly long period, one could also consider the likes of Ballymun where one can get jobseeker's benefit in just over a week or jobseeker's allowance in just over three weeks.

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