Mr. John Reynolds:

As Mr. Sloper has said, across the organisation sick leave is very difficult to cover and holidays can be difficult to get because of staff shortages. The last couple of rafts of redundancies and pay cuts have all been at the front line.

Many of those positions were suppressed and not replaced. What has happened is that staff on the ground have picked up the slack. Much more work has fallen on their laps and they are doing more. In addition, cross-grading is going on and multitasking is happening across the organisation. The stress and strain is certainly felt there. Speaking personally, there is the stability of a full-time job but I can only imagine, if somebody is on a bogus contract or has not got that stability, how much more extra strain that is adding to that individual. We needed to come here today to say that working in broadcasters is quite a stressful environment, with short times and turnarounds and all that sort of thing. When you have stability, that is okay, but when you have the instability of a bogus contract, you do not know whether it will be renewed.

The difficulty across RTÉ, and the folks seated behind me would say this, is that on the floor we are a family. I have worked with many of the bogus employee contractors and those who are on all the different contracts that exist. We are a family and we know each other. Seeing someone just disappear who has not had his or her contract renewed is extremely difficult. It is another layer of distress in an already distressing place. There is then the risk of redundancy hanging over them. Members applying for mortgages have been refused or have had to get letters of comfort from HR because banking organisations are saying, "Where are you gone?" Even full-time people are feeling that pressure.