Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for the reply. What he pointed out about the Directorate-General for Competition is important.

The legislation provides that "the Minister may give consideration". It does not compel the Minister and nor does it compel the Minister to only look at the previous year and use that as the basis; it is just something to be considered.

I have a particular concern about this because of the recruitment embargo. When it was implemented, the way it was implemented essentially was to abolish existing vacancies. When a job became vacant, that post was suppressed and the job was not replaced. Its application was very uneven and I would be concerned that it would happen in this case. Notwithstanding that, I welcome that the Minister of State has had a discussion with the commission and that it is satisfied that it would be able to take matters further, should it require. The Minister of State can see where I am coming from in this regard. It is an abundance of caution and knowledge of what happened with the recruitment embargo. I will not go into the reasons it happened but it was very unevenly applied. While it did not leave agencies unable to perform their functions, it really hampered them in being able to perform their functions. As I have said, the clarification from the Minister of State is very welcome. The Minister of State can see where we are coming from on this. It is to be cautious. We want to make sure that the maximum amount of resources are going to be made available. The additional powers will mean the commission will have a huge amount of additional work, which is very important work. I have that concern but I accept the Minister of State's response in that regard and again thank him for considering it.

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