John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

My reading of it may well be wrong but what are known as procedural agreements are reached between unions and management, or management and workers, in a particular area and most of the procedural agreements made with teachers are made through teacher unions. When I worked, procedural agreements were made between workers and management through a particular union and nothing was done outside of that. I am not saying that is right or wrong. People have the right not to be part of a union if they do not wish to be - it is preferable that they are - but sometimes it comes down to a procedural agreement. The Minister may be right in the sense that the objective would be to have an agreement with a union rather than individuals doing so with management. That leads to all sorts of chaos. This is why there are procedural agreements.