Mr. Tom Hayes:

It is both sides. Part of the reason, and I alluded to this in my earlier remarks, is that the CAC simply has no experience or expertise in dealing with European works councils. It was set up primarily to deal with issues of trade union recognition in the UK, not with European works councils. It tends to be staffed - I will be careful the way I phrase this - by academics, whereas the Irish Labour Court, on the other hand, is staffed by people who have practical experience from both the management and the trade union side and would be in a much better position to understand the industrial relations realities, because they have lived those realities, than somebody who has simply studied them from an academic point of view. That is the point Mr. McCormack was making about why the unions are comfortable with the Labour Court.