Mr. Derek Priestley:

The Chair asked about surprise. If I may, I will reference one of the early paragraphs from our conciliation and arbitration, C and A, scheme, which states that the purpose of the scheme is to provide a means acceptable to the parties - that is obviously the Minister for Defence, the Minister for public expenditure and reform and the representative associations - for determination of claims and proposals relating to remuneration and conditions of service within the scope of the scheme for members of the PDF. The surprise should be on the committee's side, if we were to say to members that this proposed legislation was never spoken of at council. It was never brought previously. The first we all heard of it was on the eve of a Cabinet meeting. The committee should be very surprised that we are now in here saying we have not been spoken to on that. The surprise should be on the other side.

If this were done in accordance with the C and A scheme, it would have been brought up on the agenda by the official side, the proposals would have been brought out, the Bill would have been drafted and brought before the committee, and none of this would have been necessary. We would like to think that if it came out at council, the endorsement of the representative associations, RAs, would be there, but it is not there. That is the disappointing thing from our point of view. We have a scheme. A lot of energy and effort goes into it but none of it was brought to this. All of this is clearly within the scope of representation.