There are two different things going on here. You have the priority system; that is the way these people should have come through. If you were laid off, you would then have an entitlement, as a person laid off in the public service, to go through the priority system. Then there's a bit of a ranking among those.
Usually we do the surpluses first and then the ministerial priority. If we have a job that looks as though it meets your skills, we say, “This meets your skills” and turn it over to the managers. Before we say you can go ahead and hire someone, you have to have gone through the priority system.
So it's in that way that other people could be affected.
In terms of creating these special assignments, there's quite a bit of discretion on those, and I don't think it was denying somebody else something in the system.