Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I hear you. I just wanted to put that on the record. Some of the people who had concerns about this said it would be like establishing another union that will sit at the table and exercise a veto. This is an issue I would have myself, although it is not huge. I have some small knowledge of the area of industrial relations. The ultimate sanction someone has when sitting around the table, if people cannot agree and they have gone through all the third-party mechanisms, is to ballot and withdraw labour. That option is not there for this group. It can exercise influence by being there and being part of the conversation but what will it do in the event that agreement cannot be reached? What will happen when there is an issue, when all parties are represented and when everybody rocks up at the Workplace Relations Commission but agreement cannot be reached and the normal industrial relations mechanisms are exhausted?

I refer to a range of issues, with pensions being one of them. At that point, clearly there is no capacity for the withdrawal of labour on the part of retired staff but there is on the part of their colleagues who are still in work. Does Mr. Collins expect that workers would withdraw labour to support his association's claim? Is the association's influence simply at the level of making an input and if so, how would that manifest itself? I ask because I know that when the talking runs out, you either hit the bricks or you go home.