Mr. Owen Reidy:

Along with IBEC and some of the other employer representatives, ICTU is involved in the LEEF subcommittee on employment rights. We have a meeting tomorrow with the Minister, Deputy Coveney, and the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, and this issue is on the agenda. I wrote to the Minister, Deputy Coveney, yesterday, making the point that the directive must be implemented in November, we need to start discussions in February and we need meetings with his officials each month, at least, to do this. We believe there is a lot to be done. IBEC believes there is little to be done. I am not sure what the two Ministers at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to whom I referred believe right now. We will see. The directive must be implemented by November.

Based on its track record, Ireland is not very good at implementing directives by the designated time. I see us having to discuss a requirement for a framework of enabling conditions and whether we want them done by law or by agreement. We have an open mind on that. Instinctively, I would say it should be done by law, but we are open to persuasion.

The third leg of the stool, which is required to happen every five years and has to happen by the end of 2025, is the action plan. That is where we see the report of the Doherty high-level group fitting in. There are some very good things in it. Other things need to be included. We believe the transposition requires new legislation, amendments to existing legislation and, crucially, a change in public policy and mindset. There is also the framework of enabling conditions. The third leg of the stool, which is equally important, is the action plan, which has to be reviewed every five years. That is the timeline. We need to see incremental improvement in density and coverage, That is how we will judge it. Merely saying there is an onus on effort, not an outcome, is a defeatist way of approaching this. I am not suggesting we will get 80% collective bargaining coverage in Ireland in the next five, ten, 15 or 20 years, but we need to aspire to that kind of thing. The countries that have a higher coverage and higher density do better on all metrics. We should aspire to that.