Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Hold on. Where agreement could not be reached, he would swoop in to legislate. He has given us a tutorial in his perspective of industrial relations, how they work and their basic tenets. One of the fundamentals of the relationship between the State and its workforce is that it is voluntarist and has not traditionally utilised legislation in this way. That was a significant shift. We have debated this point 100 times, but that is what this discussion is about. The Minister could not get the unions to agree, so he will get them to agree through this.