Mr. Kevin Duffy:

I will be quick and snappy. I will start by responding to Deputy O'Reilly, whom it is great to see.

In response to her question on whether we knew in advance of the decision of the members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, obviously we did not. We were aware of the fact that they were meeting. I am not going to comment on that as that is its decision and its prerogative.

The commission is independent, but it is not at large in the sense that it can do what it likes. It is circumscribed by its terms of reference. These did not enable the Public Service Pay Commission in this module to act as if it were a pay review body. It is also important to remember that the genesis of this phase of our work can be found in the public service stability agreement, which is a collective agreement. That is the job we were to do. It was not a general review but we made suggestions. There has been a great deal of comment about the pay commission having rejected the nurses' pay claim. The commission did nothing of the sort. It did not reject the pay claim in its merits. The members of the commission did not believe that we were in a position to consider it, but we did say that it should be considered. That nuance has been lost, unfortunately. These are the two main points made by Deputy O'Reilly. If there is any aspect I have missed, I have no doubt she will come back to me.