Mr. Gerry Quinn:

I outlined the case of the contractor in my opening statement. The contractor had been with the bank for approximately eight years and worked in the institution. The role ceased and no more work was required of the individual. The individual was told the contract would cease. The individual had never been on the payroll of bank. There was never an employee file for the individual. As far as we were concerned the person was a contractor and was employed as a contractor for services in bank. The individual made a claim on the basis of being an employee of the bank. I must be careful about getting into too much detail in case there is a danger of identifying the individual. This went through a number of fora before it arrived, once again, at the High Court. The issue was much the same. We weighed up the risks of going through and the cost of the High Court hearing. It is clear there were some deficiencies regarding the explicit nature by which we identified a contractor and we decided to settle on this basis. Since then, we have implemented certain measures, for example, different identification badges and different e-mail addresses for contractors. Contractors pay more for coffee in the canteen. This is the measure of explicit difference we are required to have in place so we never enter such a situation again where there is any doubt about the role of a contractor versus that of an employee. In 30 years' experience, having worked with many contractors in many organisations, this was the first time I saw this particular circumstance emerge.