Mr. Brendan O'Hanlon:

In terms of the engagement we had with unions from the very outset of the pandemic in April 2020, we agreed how we would approach the pandemic in order to avoid the need for austerity measures, which would have had the exact effect we were trying to avoid. If we had dealt with things like reductions in pay, terms and conditions, we would have lost staff and had major industrial relations issues. We tried to avoid that in our approach. We met the unions on a weekly basis to agree how we would engage.

We did not reduce people's terms and conditions; people availed of a voluntary package. Nobody was laid off. We did not make the package available for anybody until six months into the pandemic. Some of the predictions we heard about how long this was going to last had well and truly gone. We were six months into a pandemic, with no sight of it ever stopping in the future. We had to start making decisions whereby if people wanted to go, we let them go.