Ms Patricia King:

We are not asking that a dispute be referred to the WRC. We are asking that the good offices of the WRC and its advisory services, which are well equipped to do it and have done it in other companies, would provide a well-equipped chair to deal with all of the issues arising from the current circumstances in Bord na Móna. Deputy Smith asked about details on the future, on fundings and so on. If that forum was working correctly, it would be inclusive at appropriate times of all the players and stakeholders that need to be at it. That forum would mean everyone could be assured that all the issues I described to the Minister would be dealt with, namely the domestic issues, such as pensions, for current Bord na Móna workers, which need to be resolved, plus all the issues for the future, such as how people will be redeployed, to what jobs, the timeframe for this to happen, the conditions, funding and so on. With the will of all the players in the room, it would be possible to realise a positive outcome.

Without wishing to be emotive, there is a bit of a tragedy about this that people either knowingly or unknowingly are trying to represent this as a dispute to the WRC into which they will not go. This is much broader. It is not wholly but quite unusual. In the past, I was involved in the Bausch and Lomb dispute, for example, where I dealt with one of the best union committees in my experience, for which the WRC put together a forum. Not only did we save the jobs, and we had to do some tricky stuff in the immediate term, but we got that company to commit to engagement and investment. They said they would produce 110 jobs and they did so. That came out of a forum that we had to battle for. I was in the Department on those days trying to convince the person who happened to be the same Minister, and he remembers that. We had to battle for that. It was done out of collective bargaining. The Bausch and Lomb representatives were very clever in their understanding of what collective bargaining meant, how it should work and so on. That was a positive outcome but it could have been a tragedy because had it closed, not only would those jobs have gone but 3,000 to 4,000 ancillary jobs in the area would also have gone. I passionately believe that this is doable. It is highly frustrating for us to struggle to get people involved and into that room with all the information to make this process work, and we will do everything we can to make it work. It is tragic that there are people sitting in rooms who have no interest in the future of Bord na Móna or their workers, in my judgment, making that decision.