Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

If the current appointment system is not working local managers need only increase the time for appointments from 30 to 40 minutes. It is a local matter. It is far more preferable to tell a person who attends in respect of a claim to call back on a specific date at a specific time to a particular hatch rather than simply tell him or her to join the queue. As I understand it, the system is working well. Any regional difficulties that arise can be addressed at local level.

Temporary staff will be removed as soon as permanent staff are appointed. The Deputy will be aware there is an embargo on recruitment to the Civil Service and as such the new staff are being redeployed from other offices. The numbers I gave are significant in terms of the ones already in place.

There are no vacancies within the Department. It is simply a matter of staff redeployment.

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