Dr. Helen Russell:

On collective bargaining, it is quite a complex picture when you are trying to compare across countries. I think we are middle of the table. There has been a decline in union membership but other indices look at the amount of power unions have in wage bargaining and there seems to be less change in that in Ireland. People may not be in a union but are still covered by collective bargaining, so those partnership agreements we had gave wider coverage.

The other complication is that the level of unionisation is much higher in the public sector. There is much less inequality between men and women in terms of pay, promotion and things like that. That is partly to do with the fact those workplaces are unionised. That has played a role.