Mr. Fintan Hourihan:

There has. We have made repeated representations. Legislation was passed in 2017, the Public Service Pay and Pensions Act, which provides for an annual review. We have made submissions to those reviews. No change was recommended in those reviews, which are within the remit of the Department of Health, and, or perversely, it was on the basis that a new contract was imminent. We have had many original excuses from the Department for inactivity over recent years. It is intensely frustrating. We do not have a collective agreement. We do not represent staff collectively. We represent them because we were party to the original contract, but this is not like normal public service industrial relations where there is a public service pay agreement and there are third-party dispute resolution mechanisms. If the Department chooses to ignore a profession like ours then it will take its chances. Unfortunately, all that happens is that people choose to leave the scheme. It is no way to resolve a problem.