Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

Despite the apparent effort by the Department to beef-up the sector and to tackle this issue, the numbers do not seem to support this effort. The number of staff, 620, is little different from the 600 in 2009 and the number of inspectors remains the same as it was in March. The yield in savings is very similar to last year and we wonder if we will meet the target. The Minister said that industrial action last year had curtailed the figure, but that has not been the case this year. The review is not yielding the results we hoped it would.

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