Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Having been excluded or frozen out of the process initially, it strikes me as odd that, as a group, the delegates have come before the committee with no view in respect of the allowances. We are conversant at this stage with the wide range of allowances and the history behind them. As Mr. Cody observed, many of them predate the formation of the State. In that context, I am surprised to hear that having been frozen out of discussions initially, trade unionists would be happy for those discussions to proceed at a sectoral or more localised level, without wishing to put on the record a firm or categoric view in respect of the allowances.