Mr. Ken Spratt:

As the Deputy will know, the Workplace Relations Commission issued a proposal in respect of one of the two schemes, the regular wages scheme. It proposed that the retirement age be increased to 65 and this proposal was approved in June 2020. CIÉ has submitted a draft statutory instrument in that regard, which is being worked through. The second scheme, which I believe is the scheme to which the Deputy is referring, is known as the 1951 scheme. Proposals in respect of this scheme were initially voted down by 80% of the members who voted in a ballot last September. However, the trade union group recently balloted members on Labour Court proposals which emerged in November 2020 and, on 5 May this year, the Department was notified that there had been an overall acceptance of those proposals.