Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

-----for agreeing that. They were not bullied or anything else. They faced the challenges that we all had to face in the most serious economic crisis of our time and made a substantial contribution. I want to restore that to them incrementally in a way that is affordable and does not put at risk the progress that we have made.

To answer the Deputy's question directly, it is aimed at no one. In any negotiation, one cannot opt out of everything one must do under the deal yet retain all of the benefits and expect the deal to be sustained. That is not how the world lives. If any set of negotiators brought something to the table, asked what the other side brought and cut a deal but someone decided at the end that he or she only wanted the good bits and none of the bad bits, there would be no negotiation. I am happy for my officials to sit down with trade unions as they have done and go through this provision in detail if anyone has concerns about it. That is what we did through the Haddington Road and Lansdowne Road agreement processes and what we will keep doing as our economy, please God, continues to recover.