Mr. Shay Cody:

Bearing in mind what the Chair has said, I will try to restrict myself to the issue at hand. When the abolition was announced in 2011 all the professional bodies got together. They did not lobby separately; they created a coalition. That very powerful and influential coalition absolutely upended what was at least an equitable announcement in the budget by the then Minister, Mr. Lenihan, that he would abolish the tax relief for everybody. We were in very dark days and the trade union movement decided to live with it. We did not press it until now. We have been speaking to various Deputies throughout the country. We wrote formally to the Minister for Finance, putting it on the agenda so that it is with him. We have only an acknowledgement at this stage, but the Minister is aware of its importance for the trade union movement.

We believe this is a part of the process of trying to influence the system and hopefully in the lead-up to the next budget in October there will be support for it from across the political spectrum and that will feed into the system. If it does not work in that timescale, we will keep knocking on the door. As my colleagues have said, it is an irritant. It is like the State recognising the difference between a trade union member in a workplace and somebody who opts not to be in the trade union in the same workplace but actually gets all the benefits of the work of the trade union movement. While it is a modest sum for an individual, it is simply a recognition that good is done by the collective bargaining process both in good times and, maybe more significantly, in very bad times.