Mr. S?amus Dooley:

I would again suggest to the Acting Chair that it is appropriate that these are questions directed to the employer. The TUG has not entered into agreements on individual contracts. We do not have that power. This is not a collective process. We agreed a process. There was a review. There was an appeals process, as I said earlier, chaired by a senior counsel. There was another process for retrospection. Anyone who is not happy with that outcome is free to go to a third party. We are extremely unhappy not just with this process but with the whole way in which RTÉ has subsequently responded to positive Scope determinations. I am surprised at the apparent belief on the part of some members of this committee that we have extraordinary powers as trade union representatives. We are limited by the law of the land, by what the law allows us to do, and by contract. There is this notion that we have sat back. We have not done that. Cases are ongoing. We do not comment on individual cases.

Equally, as I said earlier, when you look at those large figures, there were people who were offered contracts. When the Deputy talks about people being let go, remember that a small number of people did not want to be an employee and preferred a contract for service for whatever reason. It is not that they were all dismissed. Within that, some people would have decided that they wanted to go. Equally, RTÉ is wrong in suggesting that people would have chosen a contract for service because the reality is that they had no choice. This is extraordinarily complex. It would be useful for the committee to hear from the decision-makers who offered those contracts.