Mr. Philip Crosby:

The principle behind these allowances is that in certain areas staff are working on-site and there is no provision of canteen facilities. Consequently, they would be required either to go out somewhere else or to return to base and lose time. In the VEC sector and among other employers in the education sector where this is done, it usually is parallel to or a follow-on from the local authority sector, in which such a practice may have been approved by Labour Court or in arbitration judgments and so on. In general, they have arisen from a decision or an adjudication, rather than an agreement.