Mr. Declan Carlyle:

A lot is turning on the reference to the actuary's recommendation or with respect to the workers subventing CIÉ's operations. That could not be further from the truth. CIÉ, like all other organisations, went through a very difficult period from 2009 onwards. The way CIÉ handled those difficulties is to be commended. Not one single person was made redundant other than through voluntary means. Exceptional efforts were made by the company to get through those difficult times.

With respect to the recommendations of the actuary, and this point needs to be taken on board, appendix 3 in the company's replies to parliamentary questions sets out clearly and refers to the document, to which I believe Mr. Ennis referred. It sets out the three options, so there no secret here nor any explosive document. It is referred to in the company's submission with respect to the options the board faced at the time. The actuary sets out in the introduction the background to the recommendation concerning the 4.6 and 3.3 times contributions. If those actuarial recommendations had stood, we know from the board's papers that were discovered by the worker directors that the trade union group at the time accepted there would be a review if the contributions went above 3.6 and 2.7 times contributions. That is in the board papers. If that actuarial recommendation had stood, there would have been a review of the board's contribution and the member's contribution.

Since 2000, more than €300 million in excess of the matching of the members' contributions has gone into these two schemes. One could not then state that the workers have been subventing CIÉ's operations. There would have been a review if that recommendation had stood. Where that review would have taken us at the time, nobody knows, but there would have been one. That is required by the statutory instruments. That recommendation was replaced and that is confirmed. There was a signed actuarial statement by the actuaries at the time that with no pension increases and no salary increases, which there were not in any event, all that was required were 2.8 and 2.3 times contributions. It refers to the document which I believe is the document to which Mr. Ennis referred. There is nothing explosive about this.