Vol. 459 No. 6
58 Mr. D. Ahern asked the Minister for Finance the reason an additional sum of £220,000 is required in respect of salaries, wages and allowances and an additional sum of £1,500,000 is required in respect of fees to counsel in the Office of the Attorney General; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18631/95]
The shortfall in the estimate for staffing in the Office of the Attorney General is attributable to a combination of factors; viz. (a) the take-on of additional staff in the Chief State Solicitor's Office to deal with the volume of claims for compensation for deafness being made by former and serving Defence Forces personnel, (b) insufficient provision in the original estimate for the cost of pay increases in 1995, (c) the full-year cost of an assistant secretary and assistant principal officer seconded to the Office of the Attorney General from the Department of Justice as part of the reorganisation of that Office and (d) a number of promotions of staff within the Office arising from the recommendations contained in the report of the Review Group on the Office of the Attorney General which was published on 21 February 1995.
The shortfall in the estimate for fees to counsel is attributable to the fact that accurate estimation in this demand-led area of expenditure is difficult. Expenditure is determined, in the main, by such factors as the number of court actions to which the State is a party in any one year, the length of the cases and their complexity.
