Ms Pauline O'Hare:

The Senator has raised a couple of issues there, some of which overlap with points made earlier. I will start with the point on collective bargaining if I may because it came up previously. On collective bargaining - and SIPTU did mention this - the high-level group report was published yesterday. IBEC actively engaged with the unions around how we can promote collective bargaining. As many will know, the directive that will require the promotion of collective bargaining focuses on promotion at sector level. We already have sectoral collective bargaining mechanisms in place and as SIPTU rightly mentioned, we had the recent employment regulation order in the early years sector which is an example of those mechanisms working. There is a collective bargaining mechanism already in place and while we are looking at the promotion of collective bargaining, we cannot support the proposal to legislate for a right to collectively bargain. We have lots of examples where direct engagement works very well and that model needs to be respected too. We also have examples of collective agreements that work very well. We have a voluntarist framework that has served us very well in times of recession and economic growth.

I reiterate that the Government has produced a high-level report and we are looking at the promotion of collective bargaining. We have been involved in that in the context of what is a voluntarist industrial relations framework.