Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It will no longer be an office of the Department; it will be an independent agency under the remit of the Department. The new authority will have all the necessary human resources required, both civil servants and members of An Garda Síochána, to fulfil its mandate. The budget for the ODCE has been increased by 20% since 2018 and the Department has sanctioned 14 additional staff to be assigned to the new authority. The permanent complement of members of An Garda Síochána will increase from seven to 16 and the total headcount of the authority will increase by 50%. This is in line with the assessment by the current director of the staffing needs of the authority. I look forward to the enactment of the Bill before the Christmas recess and I would like to be in a position to sign the establishment order so that the body can come into being in January next year.

As regards the Anglo Irish Bank trials, it is important to point out that the investigation of the ODCE into Anglo Irish Bank comprised five separate investigations and resulted in four trials, all of which resulted in persons being convicted on indictment of criminal offences. It is accepted that there were investigative failures relating to DPP v. FitzPatrick, but I do not think they were entirely down to resource issues.

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