Mr. Adrian Kane:

To briefly respond to the Deputy's questions, the answer is "yes", as my colleague from Fórsa said. The Department officials expect job losses and they admitted that. They are prepared, and certainly would have signalled to us, for some movement on referrals, access, moneys upfront, etc. The point I will stress to the committee is that we find ourselves in the position that unless this process is paused, halted and existing contracts are extended for a rollover period - a year would be reasonable - any further engagement we have with the Department will be on the basis of it stating that the tendering process is at play and it cannot engage with us in any significant way because it is in that tendering process and it could disadvantage private sector concerns.

That is the difficult bind. I have no doubt the argument that will be repeated ad infinitumwhen the committee hears the Department's side of the story is that it is too late to engage and, in any case, did officials not speak frequently with the unions. They did not. There was no sense of parity of esteem in the development of this. We were talked down to. In meetings attended by the trade union side, we were told in no uncertain terms by the Department officials, up to the meeting of 17 September, that they ere briefing us and telling us what was happening but they were not giving us an opportunity to influence the process.