Mr. Owen Reidy:

I am not going to give specific examples. I have worked for the congress for seven years and worked for SIPTU for 18 years before that. There have been countless examples where those kinds of situations have arisen in the private sector. They are way out of line. Workers need access, physically and digitally, to trade unions. There are obviously issues around the general data protection regulation, GDPR, in the European Union, and we have to try to address and deal with that. However, we think we need a suite of legislation that gives designated trade union representatives who are in employment the necessary means to discharge their duty. That means reasonable time off to do their roles, adequate time off for training, a pro rata reduction in performance targets, access to office communications facilities and access to workers who are new recruits for the purposes of induction. We want them to be seen as dedicated and specific people in the workplace.