Mr. Vernon Hegarty:

No. The Protection of Employees (Employers Insolvency) Act, deals with those specific situations where individual workers - or groups of workers sometimes - fall without the narrow restrictive definitions of what constitutes an insolvency for the purposes of the application of that Act. There are so many people outside of that. There was a specific recommendation that had to do with amending and affording those people to come within the ambit of the Act. The Deputy's question is how does one address access. SIPTU and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions have proposed that anything in the reformed Bill that adds costs associated to access - whether it be an enforcement or in prosecuting those cases through the various fora - is contrary to the entire premise under which these fora were set up. As Mr. O'Sullivan rightly pointed out, these are to do with accessibility and its association with costs. We raise costs at our peril. We differ from IBEC in that regard and, indeed, with respect, from Mr. O'Sullivan. We argue against any associated costs because they are a dissuasion from accessibility. The move to hearing at a District Court level has been mooted and is progressive. The costs associated with attendance at the District Court are less than a hearing at the Circuit Court. Referring those enforcement procedures to the Labour Court would be a step better again in achieving the most complete accessibility and that is what we have proposed.