THE Government has already implemented some of the recommendations in a consultants report which declared the Chief State Solicitor's Office to be seriously under resourced.
Following revelations in yesterday's Irish Times that the defects could lead to a breakdown in the services of the office, a Government spokesman last night outlined measures undertaken to counter the problems.
He confirmed that the Chief State Solicitor had already considered the report presented to the Government last November and would discuss the recommendations today with the Attorney General, Mr Dermot Gleeson.
The report, by consultants Deloitte & Touche, sharply criticised management structures and said cases could be mishandled, with severe embarrassment to the State.
However, the spokesman said the Government had agreed to the immediate recruitment of one principal solicitor, one assistant
[solicitor and one clerical assistant to undertake duties related to the [Criminal Assets Bureau.
It also agreed to the provision of 12 or 13 additional staff for hearing loss cases taken by the Army.
The Government also accepted in principle the contents of the report, including the consultants' recommendation that 20 staff be employed and that the office discuss the implementation of the remaining recommendations with the Department of Finance.
The recruitment of those 20 staff is a matter of consultation between the Chief State Solicitor's Office, the Department of Finance and the unions.
According to the spokesman, appointments to all the relevant [posts had been made, except that of the Assistant Solicitor, who was to be assigned to the Criminal Assets Bureau. There had not been a "sufficient build up of work" to justify filling the post yet, he added.
Additional financial resources have already been provided in this year's Estimates for the Chief State Solicitor's Office, the spokesman said. These would cover recruitment, a "major computerisation programme" and infrastructural developments.
Salaries, wages and allowances had received an additional 26 percent under the Estimates subheads. Money for office machinery, including information technology equipment, was up by 103 per cent, and by 204 per cent for incidental expenses".
The spokesman described the Deloitte & Touche report as "historic".