I welcome the scheme. If a person wishes to have an interdepartmental transfer can he or she be accommodated more easily as a result of a colleague taking a career break?

That is a statistical question.

No, it is not. It is about interdepartmental transfers.

The question on the Order Paper is a statistical one. We are going off at tangents and the Minister might not be armed to deal with them.

No fear.

We cannot discuss the whole scheme.

The more people in rural offices who opt for career breaks the more mobility there will be for people in central offices to transfer to rural locations.

If a person in a rural office opts for a career break and a person in a corresponding grade in a central office wishes to have a direct transfer to fill the vacancy can that be arranged?

It can, but the Deputy is talking about a hypothetical case because there are very many applications for every potential vacancy in any rural office.