Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We all agree that the Minister of State, Deputy Ring, has given an inordinate amount of time to trying to resolve this issue. I compliment him on that. The role of the Irish Sports Council and how it decides on its funding under its statutory obligations might arise in the future. That is why I raised it.

My next question relates specifically to the meeting of 14 September and what happened afterwards.

I am sorry, but I ask the Chairman to just bear with me for one moment because I want to find the particular reference made to it by Billy Walsh. He said the new fixed contract would give him very few legal protections. I think Senator Sean D. Barrett referred to this. Mr. Walsh said he was under significant time pressures to sign. Instead of rejecting the contract outright and walking away, he said:

I went through the proposed fixed-term contract with my solicitor and a HR professional and identified up to 60 changes that were required to make this a fair and acceptable contract document for me. We submitted these changes through my solicitor to the IABA solicitor on 21 September and no response came from the IABA until 8 October. From 21 September to 8 October it seemed that they were deliberately dragging this out.

He went on to say: "The IABA had merely agreed to a few stylistic changes and one or two elements of limited substance." I am going to direct the question to Mr. Kirwan because he seems to have come across as the person who was directly involved in the issue of contract employment law. Does he have any response?