Mr. Dermot O'Leary:

I have a brief response for Deputy Murphy who will not be surprised to hear that it is very hard to measure the cost of legal advice, although I understand that the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, such as he is, is an expert on the legal profession. Perhaps, he would have an idea of how much it would cost and write a cheque based on his knowledge.

Of course, certainty around pensions is a priority. That includes the 1,000 who are completely reliant on the CIÉ pension fund for their pension into retirement. It is of paramount importance to all the trade unions that all members, both active who are in payment and deferred, are looked after and have that certainty. However, I repeat what I said earlier. We can only resolve a problem which has been clearly identified. That is the problem here. The problem has not been clearly identified. That is the issue coming back to the legal advice.

On balance, I refer Deputy Murphy to our submission where we lay out the balance the Deputy seeks. The reason the increase in contributions was refused by the trade unions at the time was because the company had not met its obligations under SI 323 of 2000. That is a fact.

I will make one last point about costs. The members should note that CIÉ pays approximately €5 million to its actuary every year. It is not a sum to be sneered at. It also pays out €1.5 million in administration. It is a total cost of €6.5 million. For the trade unions to seek independent legal advice, expensive as it might be, would not cost anything like that.