Mr. Hamilton Goulding:

No, I do not. The idea that there was a contrivance to separate salaries in order to protect some people from pay cuts that others would be receiving is really quite wrong. The separation simply started when the new scales were introduced in 2009 and there was obviously a separation then because some of the salaries which were contracted were being paid by the HSE and the balance was then outstanding. We come back to the point about a contractual obligation, that a company that has a contract with an employee cannot unilaterally diminish the income without being legally liable. From that point onwards, once one does not have one body paying everything, one automatically has separation. To say that the separation was made with a view to making in the future some special protections is not correct.