QUEBEC - The provincial government's much-touted anti-corruption squad has police investigators and a well-respected leader, but without lawyers, it won't accomplish much.

That's why Justice Minister Jean-Marc Fournier announced Tuesday that he's agreeing to some of the demands Crown prosecutors and government lawyers were making during their recent strike.

Fournier says the government, despite legislating an end to the labour dispute, will now hire an additional 94 prosecutors and 66 more jurists and researchers.

When the legislation was passed in mid-February, the government said it would hire 145 people.

"The law that we adopted was not to end our effort to have better conditions for [lawyers]. It was a way for us to give life to justice," said Fournier.

The government said it will also hire a mediator to listen to the complaints from lawyers and present their demands to government managers.

In the meantime it will see what can be done about paying lawyers overtime and reducing their workload.

"I'm talking about $100 million dollars for four years. We're talking about a budget that the DPCP (Department of Penal and Criminal Prosecutions) have of $80 million so we are talking about $25 million on a budget of $80 million. I think we are doing things that are substantive," said Fournier.

Opposition critics say these moves show how desperate the government is to make its anti-corruption squad effective.

Veronique Hivon, Parti Quebecois justice critic, says the move adds insult to injury.

"I think the government is in a very big crisis with its anti-corruption unit which is simply unable to operate at the moment we're speaking because the Crown prosecutors simply refuse to be part of that unit," said Hivon.

The $31.5 million unit, led by Robert Lafreniere and based on New York's permanent investigative squad, needs about 20 lawyers to handle charges and shepherd prosecutions through the court system.

However Louis Dionne, director of the DPCP hopes the announcement will have a positive impact.

"With this new announcement I think that we could have the tools to hire those people, after a discussion with the association," said Dionne.