Mr. Owen Reidy:

I will take those in order and I will be succinct. The Deputy says that I advocate collective bargaining with trade unions because I am from the trade union movement. That is the definition of collective bargaining. It is with trade unions, not with anyone else. It is with employers, not with anyone else. That is clear in the directive, which reasserts that. It is a policy shift. It is not a policy shift that Ireland should be wary or fearful of. It struck me that of the 13 Irish MEPs, 12 of them, from all political parties and none, supported this directive. The 13th was just not there on the day, and I imagine he probably would have supported it. The negotiations are over. The Commission, the Council, the Parliament, BusinessEurope and the ETUC were all involved. This is the outcome, it is now about implementation. It is not a second cut for people to take out things they do not like. However, it is a policy shift and it creates the need for a serious culture shift and an all-of-government approach. The Deputy asked about the legislation. We do need it, and I suggest we can do it in line with, as per the directive, "national practice". We have, for example, seriously robust legislation to protect health and safety representatives, which is good and important. We probably do not utilise it as much as we should, quite frankly.

We have no legislation to protect workplace trade union representatives or to facilitate them in carrying out their functions and we should have that. We could mirror that in the information and consultation legislation. We could mirror the protections for workers and workplace representatives if they are dismissed by way of trade union activity under the protected disclosures legislation.