Mr. Neil McGowan:

There has been no consultation with the workers or the workers' representatives in the airports regarding any temporary testing facility or changing regulations in that context. We have not heard anything in that regard. If that is something that is going to come to fruition, we will be eager to engage with it.

Regarding the negotiations concerning no compulsory redundancies, as I said earlier, I believe that the DAA has gone about this process in the correct way. Very early in the discussions between the unions and the company, compulsory redundancies were ruled out and a voluntary severance package was made available. We believe there is sufficient interest in that voluntary severance package for the company to achieve the reduction in numbers with which it wishes to move ahead.

That has not been the experience in every other company. We have yet to engage with Aer Lingus, despite it having been several weeks since it wrote to the Minister informing the Department that it was seeking to make 500 people in the non-pilot grades redundant. There is a very real worry in Aer Lingus that compulsory redundancies are something we will face in the very short term. It has been a long-standing position of SIPTU that compulsory redundancies are simply unacceptable. It is a road we have never gone down before, but it is a real fear that we might be facing into that in the immediate future in Aer Lingus.

Equally, among the third-party handlers, while many of them have engaged with the unions, there has been little in the way of meaningful negotiations. Several such employers are seeking to take advantage of the pandemic. One particular employer at Dublin Airport, with which we have a long-standing collective agreement dating back to 1996, is seeking to alter the terms of that in respect of public holiday entitlements, annual leave entitlements and sick pay entitlements, which I find reprehensible given the time we are in. I will leave it there and allow time for Captain Cullen to comment.