Mr. Tony O'Brien:

I appreciate the Deputy raising the point. By and large, the €74 million does not have a good explanation. There will always be some claims for which there may be a good reason for non-signing but €74 million is way too high. That is one of the reasons, shortly after taking up my post, together with the Secretary General, we sat down with the representatives of the consultant bodies and invited them into a Labour Relations Commission, LRC, process, one of the outcomes of which is a provision that such forms must be signed within 14 days. I also referred to our proposals, subject to final legal clearance, to publish the list of consultants who are not signing forms.