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

The Minister of State talked about a level playing field, but there is not one at the moment because Irish representative groups through the EWCs do not have access to the State's machinery and they do in other jurisdictions. If the Minister of State is talking about levelling up the playing field then happy days, but he is talking about putting that on the long finger and it is not necessary for us to wait. I appreciate the work that has been done and am not trying to undercut it in any way. When the new Commission comes into place post the European elections the likelihood is this is going to be pushed out even further. What we heard here from the representatives from SIPTU was they felt there was a need for this to move a little quicker. I do not sense a hostility to doing this from the Minister of State and it seems it is more to do with the mechanism. My concern is around timing, because we could do this now or we could wait for the Commission. Timing is the issue I am primarily concerned with.