Mr. Conor King:

To echo what Mr. Keane said, there is no example. Why would there be an example, when the Government has already said there is no intent to reduce our rights? That proves there is no example that exists. However, unless we see changes to the language in the document, then we cannot trust that we will not lose our rights at some time in the future. Primary legislation trumps secondary legislation.

Maybe what we are seeing is a gradual erosion of industrial relations norms within the Defence Forces, for which our predecessors fought very hard in the late eighties and into the nineties. We are now focusing more on legislation than on industrial relations norms. There is a move to legislate and rush things through the Oireachtas rather than sitting down, giving us the due respect we believe we deserve and have earned, talking about whether there are problems with the legislation, what the Government is thinking of putting in, and what we think from our experience. We are being denied that on multiple fronts. It results in us having to come from behind the curve to engage. We are so grateful we have the opportunity to engage through this prelegislative scrutiny process, but this is the first time we have had to do this on legislation, in my association's memory. We believe that while it is a fantastic right to have, we should not be before the committee, and would not be if we had a relationship where we were listened to more.