Mr. Dermot O'Leary:

I will be as brief as I can. In respect of the comment made by Mr. Carlyle on the acknowledgement by the trade unions of SI 323/2000. We are very clear. I think the transparency and openness in this debate is one sided. The last interaction between Deputy Barry and the CIÉ group is telling. The only transparency is coming from the trade union side, to be fair. We have asked many questions.

I will try to condense it. Deputy Munster asked me a couple of questions. I wrote down some of them. In respect of the Waterford Crystal piece, the Deputy is correct that 1,500 people were involved. It cost the State a significant amount of money to repair that. It did not go fully towards repairing it. I think the figures are approaching €200 million for that particular item. Ironically, one of the actuaries advising the trade union group was central to that Waterford Crystal case all the way to the European Court of Justice. It cost the State a lot of money for 1,500 never mind 16,000. There is a relevance there.

I am sorry I have to repeat this, but there is a caveat of the legal advice which is central to all this. I conscious in answering further questions that unless we get that legal advice we cannot act on anything. Senator Feighan, and his colleague, Deputy Rock, who has just left, need to be clear and to understand that no one is here, on the workers' side, looking for a bailout. That is not what this is about. The schemes here are still open and alive. I said this already, but relaxing the requirement to match liabilities with investments in Government bonds would make a significant difference to the deficits.

In respect of the core issues, I refer, briefly, to a letter I wrote that goes to the heart of the issues on which the three trade unions have been responding to questions. What we said was that it was imperative that all the concerns that have surfaced and been ventilated will be addressed, whether they revolve around the 1994 piece, where the five schemes morphed into two, the alleged guarantees, the contribution piece or SI 205/2010 and SI 323/2000. The central tenet here is that the contributions that were suggested and recommended by the actuaries were not acted upon by the CIÉ board. We know they were not acted up by the CIÉ board and that left a shortfall in both schemes. Those are the kernels of the issues here. Unless we get clarity and transparency around those issues, we are at nothing.

In respect of the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, I repeat that we have no objection. We do our best business, if I can put it that way, at that body. However, the people who practice industrial relations regularly, which we do on this side of the table, know it is a very fluid science. Some of the stuff at the heart of this, and we have been mentioning it ad infinitumat this stage, is rigid. It is covered by law, statutory instruments and legislation. Unless we get sight of what is under that, whether it is a document that has status or not, independent of the company, then this issue will not be resolved. There are 16,000 people involved. It is a significant issue. Unless that happens we are at nothing here.