Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

On that point about compatibility, and we had an interesting discussion with the various trade unions groups on this, in the final draft of this we decided not to give that excessive power. We felt it was better as a mediation service. Section 37 states that where the commission has attempted to resolve a dispute referred to it under this section and such conference or the employment of those other means has not resulted in a resolution of the dispute, the commission shall notify the parties to the dispute and the Minister of writing of the fact. There is a reference back to Government at every stage and not a compatibility, and I believe that is appropriate because, as I said, this is a piece of a jigsaw which encourages long-term planning, partnership and engagement with all stakeholders. It is not a super authoritative stroke of a pen outlining what one shall do. This is what we need.

I refer to the variety of circumstances in which this could be deployed. I was just thinking about this in terms of where we started today. We started with the chairman of EirGrid, who is the former Secretary General of the Department, coming in. The committee will likely agree his one key message, in terms of its work, was that more than anything else what it needs is to bring community together, to bring people along and to engage in an innovative stakeholder mediation process. That was his main message. That is a perfect example. The need to develop our grid is a critical piece of climate infrastructure. We have seen how it can go wrong and how it is difficult for companies sometimes to manage that mediation process with communities and-or workers.

We started today with a really good example of how this piece of mediation architecture could and should work. As I said, we are going to have to come back to other pieces of the jigsaw before the Government makes a decision on whether it will issue a money message or not, because it seems clear we have a majority in the Oireachtas supporting this on Second Stage and, I hope, on Committee Stage. We need that review from NESC by the end of the year as it would be very useful. As I understand from Mr. Carroll, it would include an example of other areas where this sort of mediation service or a just transition commission could be deployed. It would very useful because we would have a better idea of what has happened in the midlands in terms of this. It is very clear, as we heard last week, that resolution of this difficulty in the midlands is not something that can wait months. It has to be resolved within weeks. If we can come back early in January or whatever appropriate date-----