Mr. Fergus Whelan:

I refer to all the so-called consultation. There was certainly discussion, but at no point were we able to get any clear answers in that process in regard to the labour market issues we talked about and many of the issues we talked about today. Quite frankly, I believe private sector workers have been done over very badly in this. The only way to bring a bit of justice back to the situation is to push it out and to do it in a more gradual way. To put it at its most crude, if one twin was born before midnight and the other twin after midnight, one gets a full year's entitlement while the other loses a full year's entitlement. That is a very crude way to do it. Everywhere else in Europe is doing it much more gradually. I suggested a way in my submission. That was put to the Department and was, in the usual fashion, pushed aside as being of no relevance. No country is going as far and as fast as we are. We should slow this down and should not go to 68 years. We should go to 67 and should do so in a much more gradual fashion so that the load is spread more evenly and does not just fall on a small number of workers because of their age.