Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy is right. Had we discussed this four or five years ago the complaint would have been that the work permit section was not delivering quickly enough. We have transferred many of those people to the redundancy section. Following further meetings with the Minister of State, Deputy Calleary, we have not just added 20 staff but transferred an additional 14. I have also requested another staff transfer which I believe the Minister for Health and Children will facilitate with an additional ten people to effect that transformation as quickly as possible. We will also use NERA so that people can do the work while someone else answers the telephone.

I do not disagree. I know that everybody is crying out for the few euro to which they are entitled, for one reason or another. We have met several businesses which have asked us to transfer the money to the Revenue Commissioners to get these people off their backs. We have facilitated that on an individual basis but only with the client's imprimatur. We continue to do all we can to try to deal with this problem.

I hope that the Deputy will be proved wrong about the number of redundancy notices that have been put in. There was a high number between January and March of this year but we will do all we can. If other ideas, or initiatives that need to be taken, I will be forthcoming. One suggestion was that we outsource this work but I have not yet come to a final agreement on that but if necessary it is another option.

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