Mr. Willie Noone:

I will answer that. We are actively trying to unionise those employments, but it is being made difficult for us. In Littleton, for example, some 45 staff were let go from the former briquette factory. Some 35 new people were then employed in a partnership established with a Chinese company. All those new employees are on one-year fixed-term contracts, however, and their wages are just above the minimum. We are chasing our tail. As soon as we have unionised employees, they are gone in a matter of months and replaced with new employees. Bord na Móna is adept at ensuring that people do not become permanent employees. That is why the employees mentioned by the Deputy in Coolnamona, who were employed for 35 years, are now being offered one-year fixed-term contracts. Those contracts contain provisions that mean there is no recourse to the Unfair Dismissals Act, and those people's jobs are gone after 12 months. We are also told that people in the later stages of their lives, in their late 60s, are those who are going to be retrained and reskilled to do retrofitting.

The Deputy also mentioned the tendering process. Bord na Móna does not have a good track record in tendering for work in the rehabilitation area or from the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Most of the tenders submitted by Bord na Móna have been unsuccessful, so we would not hold much hope that the company will be successful in work that will go out for retrofitting. That is because the people competing and tendering again Bord na Móna are skilled at that work, while the company does not have one person skilled or trained up to that level and no effort has been made to do that. Some two thirds of the workers destined to leave the company have gone and the remainder will be possibly gone by March. That is the reality.