Sir, – You report (News, May 30th) that home sales are falling through because of lengthy delays in extracting grants of probate. The Probate Office acknowledges that waiting times have increased due to a number of staff retirements. But “new staff have joined, are now trained and are already helping to reduce waiting times”. Did all these retirements come like a bolt out of the blue or were they “scheduled”? If the latter, it might be an idea to recruit and train staff in advance of the planned departures so that service levels can be maintained. It’s just a thought. – Yours, etc,
PAT O’BRIEN,
Dublin 6.