Mr. Ned Costigan:

We also considered this element. The previous 1946 legislation described a group of unions and the employer organisations as substantive. We still believe that is basically true but there would have to be a change for this legislation. On the employee side, the group of unions would have to come together with other groups outside the group of unions and come to a body which represents the employers, which includes other groups outside the employer organisations, and form a substantive group. In other words, there would have to be pre-talks among both sides for them to establish that they are substantive. I refer to the group of unions together with people outside the unions. The vast majority of construction workers are members of our union. There are 95,000 on the live register. I have been unemployed for the past 12 months. Who would represent me? I am 54 years of age. I have worked for 50 employers in the industry since I started my apprenticeship when I was 17 years old. Who represents me in this respect? In the absence of anybody else, I would represent myself in this respect, but I would insist that unemployed construction workers and non-union construction workers would have to be facilitated. A mechanism to facilitate that would have to be put forward.

It is up to the group of unions, which are the leaders on the workers' side to establish a body. We have written to the Construction Industry Council on many occasions to be recognised at least as an observer group, but we have been continuously blanked on that request. In terms of providing for that in this legislation, it will come down to the group of unions to say that they are substantive because they take account of the opinions of others and the same will apply to those on the employers' side. Any employers who say they are a substantive group would have to take into consideration what I have read about the agencies, as they are employers too. They would have to say that they are in their representative group, they have spoken to bodies such as agencies and they are now in a position to negotiate. That is the only way in this industry one could envisage forming a grouping that would have any legal basis that would not be open to challenge and that would come under the proposed definition. In our submission we are saying that such a definition was not put forward. The members are asking other people for a definition and such a definition would have to involve the broadest possible group of people on both sides.