Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Question 42: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the budget and staff allocation of the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement every year since 2007; the number of investigations ongoing being conducted by the ODCE; her views on whether the office is adequately resourced to investigate alleged breaches of company law in the banking sector in a timely manner; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [48142/09]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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The budget allocations of the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement in 2007, 2008 and 2009 were €4,823,000, €4,957,000 and €5,535,000 respectively. The numbers of full-time equivalent staff in the Office at the start of 2007, 2008 and 2009 were 34.8, 39.6 and 44.8 respectively. The current staff complement is 49.3. These staff include Gardaí and accounting, administrative, IT and legal expertise. In addition, the Garda Commissioner has made available in recent months a further five Gardaí to support the related Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation and ODCE banking enquiries.

The Office has some 700 cases on hands. These include public complaints of alleged misconduct, reports by auditors of the suspected commission of indictable offences under the Companies Acts and reports by liquidators into the conduct of the directors of insolvent companies. I am informed that the investigations into Anglo Irish Bank and related banking matters are the primary focus of the Director at this time. As no ODCE request for additional staff is outstanding I am satisfied that the Director has sufficient staff to conduct these investigations.