Mr. Kevin Duffy:

Deputy Crowe made the point that the Public Sector Pay Commission was not set up as an alternative to the established mechanisms for determining pay and conditions of employment for health service workers. That, happily, is a system of collective bargaining. We are not going to usurp the well-established mechanisms between trade unions and employers. We are not an industrial relations body. We were not given that task, and I do not think that people in the trade unions or on the employers side would thank us if we were to usurp their function and try to do their job for them. Many of those things are matters that would be dealt with in the normal course day to day within established collective bargaining mechanisms. We are not going to usurp that.