John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is not from where my surprise comes. My surprise comes from how it is being approached, although I should not be surprised. I was surprised that the witnesses from the ICTU told us today that it knew nothing about this. Ms King, in particular, said that this was done by diktat and that, basically, it would have none of it. I have to ask that question. I know what the Minister is doing but surely, in terms of all of these allowances, there should have been some discussion to flag this for the unions concerned, saying this is how we are going to go about it and what these business cases are all about. They were not business cases. I would have thought that out of that earlier engagement with the unions, Ms Buckley would have got a much more rounded view of what these allowances were, where they were and what they meant to the workers. For example, a lot of the information given to date has come as a surprise to members in terms of who these allowances are paid to and so on. They have expressed the view that many of the allowances are actually core pay, and the unions themselves said they are core pay. I would have thought that would be an interesting point to include in a business plan to management. Ms Buckley might just say where the approval is for the 12 allowances. What does that mean? Is the Department issuing approvals as it goes along?