Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is a pattern here with the Rehab organisation. That is reflected in an article in yesterday's Irish Independent, if I may discuss that for a moment, and it was touched upon to a degree by Deputy McDonald earlier, particularly around the necessity to cut pay packets and for wage moderation in the organisation in light of the situation in which the country found itself and in which Rehab's core funders from the State side found themselves. In that article, and I am sure Ms Kerins will recall this, a reference was made to getting, as I understand it, staff and union representatives who would have an interest in establishing financial information about the company in the normal course of events to sign confidentiality agreements in the context of a due diligence process around the financial position of the company. In the normal course of events in my experience, if a company goes to a trade union and says it is in difficulty, the union often requests financial information, which is usually made available, and they can also request an independent financial adviser, a financial consultant, to do a due diligence exercise. It is often then requested by the Labour Court but there seemed to be serious resistance to that at the time. Can Ms Kerins, as the chief executive of Rehab, recall asking those who had that information in relation to the financial position of the company to sign confidentiality agreements? This is in regard to the article in yesterday's Irish Independent.