Vol. 417 No. 1
311 Mr. Howlin asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the reason the complement of ship inspectors employed by his Department at Rosslare Harbour has been reduced from six to four with retiring employees not being replaced; the level of overtime being done by the remaining four ship inspectors, and whether it is intended to recruit additional ship inspectors in the near future.
In the context of the completion of the Internal Market in the Community, frontier inspections of agricultural produce in intra Community trade will have to be replaced after 1 January 1993 by other forms of inspection. In these circumstances, the recruitment of additional ship inspectors at this time could not be justified. There has been an increase in overtime working at this port in recent years. Over the past few months total overtime worked by ship inspectors at Rosslare Harbour was of the order of 110 hours per week.
