Mr. Denis Sheridan:

They were following the legislation. Under the legislation, for matters relating to confidentiality, one would write to the Minister. That is section 20 of the Act, and one would seek an arbitrator to come in. The Government was to appoint it. As Mr. Hayes has implied, section 7 of the Act was for the purpose of setting regulations for arbitrators and so on. It was never commenced so the Government simply did not respond. The British Council has now made a complaint to the European Union that it cannot get into the redress mechanisms of Ireland due to this.

There are also other companies coming in. Section 21 of the Act refers to arbitrators for issues around the agreement. One of the companies mentioned by Mr. Hayes tried writing to the Minister seeking redress under section 21 of the Act regarding the agreement. It got a response, simply, that it would need to go to the WRC with that. That was despite the legislation not providing for a party to go to the WRC. That, however, was the response.

As for our position, we approached the Department, which asked us to write a paper for it on European works councils, which we did. It told us it would review it and come back to us but we never heard from the Department again.