Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To assist Deputy Dooley, the CEO of the company could give us a briefing as to what the position is. Rather than getting into a question-and-answer type situation, the CEO might inform the committee what the situation is and if we need to have a subsequent meeting with the company and the relevant stakeholders we could do that. I accept where the Acting Chairman is coming from. We would not like to be seen to have any degree of bias, but I also accept what Deputy Dooley is saying, because this is unprecedented, as the Minister has said. We have gone from a situation where there was an afternoon strike threatened to a situation where there are days of strikes threatened.

Maybe rather than getting into a question-and-answer type situation, the CEO might be able to provide us with an update as to what is happening, and afterwards, if there is a requirement for a subsequent meeting, the committee can make the relevant arrangements. I think it might be a bit unfair to proceed today in the absence of the other stakeholders. I understand where the Acting Chairman is coming from but I think it would be no harm to get an update rather than having adversarial questions and answers. Perhaps if Deputy Dooley would accept a statement from the CEO on the situation, we could leave it at that until a subsequent meeting.