Mr. Derek Priestley:

We can only reflect the firmly held views of our membership. It is not that long ago since we did a national tour of all the barracks and met our members during which this issue was raised as it is quite topical. Very few of our members would welcome the opportunity to join ICTU. There are good reasons for that. I do not particularly want to go into many of them, but at the end of the day we recognise our role in society and the job we do, and we believe it would present many difficulties for us if we were to join ICTU. Hence the reason we prefer the alternative of the notion of a pay review body unique to the Defence Forces. We cannot say, on the one hand, we have a 24-7 liability and all the restrictions in the military service that we and the Senator well know and then believe we should be treated like every other normal employee. We do not see ourselves as normal employees. All we can do is reflect the honestly held view of our membership who do not see themselves joining ICTU any day soon.