Ms Tara Coogan:

On retrospectivity, there is no need to rectify anything that has taken place in the past. Going forward, however, this will be an issue. Thankfully, we do not have to revisit the thousands of decisions that have been made at the WRC in the past six years.

The second question was on penalties. The Supreme Court obviously felt there was a need to have the oath. It was not really the oath or the affirmation but, rather, the idea of having a potential penalty associated with wilfully giving false evidence. This is about the "liar, liar" type of person, or somebody who is wilfully misleading or abusing the judicial process. It is to ensure there is a type of penalty associated with that. It was a kind of package deal. Since the WRC is not a normal court, "perjury" is not the associated term. We will be providing for an offence. I will be honest with the committee in saying I cannot see this becoming a regular feature but if a person was blatantly and clearly misleading or maliciously giving false evidence, the matter would then be referred to the courts for normal prosecution.

With regard to the policy matters, some concerns were expressed about the independence, skills and qualifications of the persons who are carrying out the adjudication service. While O'Donnell was categorically clear that there was no constitutional requirement for these persons to be fully legally qualified, there are a number of minority decisions that disagreed with that particular provision. We would look at the recruitment, skills, training and development and making sure people have the relevant skills and necessary understanding.

Another issue, which I should have mentioned and which will be addressed immediately in this Bill, is the unique statement in section 40 of the Workplace Relations Act that the Minister may revoke a warrant of appointment. That would never happen in practice but the reality is that these words were somewhat alarming to the Supreme Court. We will now provide a clear process setting out what would happen if a Minister were to revoke or remove an adjudication officer from office. There is now the issue of adjudication officers as administrators of justice and what this means in the context of the system. These are the kinds of bigger questions we must tease out.

We will have to look at some of the issues that are in the minority decisions. While they are not binding, they will certainly have a persuasive element. I hope I have addressed everything for Deputy Bruton. Was there anything I missed?