James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the insightful information. I have a couple of questions. From a practical point of view co-operatives come in all shapes and sizes. They are different in each region. In particular the farming and agriculture sector is an area I have an interest in. I live on a farm and many people with whom I engage on a daily basis from across our community are involved with co-operative movements. The proposed changes under consideration are naturally going to cause some interest. Naturally in an organisation that has a large group of people, the majority goes from a higher to a lower level where there might be a simple majority for processing decisions around amalgamations and mergers. There is a natural thinking. I am trying to tease this out to see what the attendees have to say on it. It may not necessarily be a good idea to have that simple majority for these decisions on potential amalgamations to be pushed through because naturally there may not be full attendance for voting. The voting delegates would have a vote in such a decision. In addition there is a school of thought that having two joint meetings at 50% is the way of addressing it. However, is the status quosomething that seems appropriate to continue from the viewpoint of the ICOS? Perhaps also from the academic side. I would love to get an insight on that. It has been raised with me. I believe it is a fair ask and a fair request. Coming from the position that if you were dealing with a company that might have hundreds of millions worth of revenue - and there are co-operatives in Ireland that are at that scale, there are co-operatives dealing with more than €1 billion in revenue per annum now in Ireland particularly in the dairy industry - two meetings and a decision with 50-50 voting or a 50% plus one majority is a major undertaking. I am not trying to undermine the decision-makers and the stakeholders but want to get a flavour from what our participants at today’s meeting have to say because they are the experts on it. I will ask the ICOS its view on that, and from the academic side as well, I would appreciate some feedback on that.