Ms Yvonne O'Callaghan:

There are a number of things to which I alluded earlier. We work with the International Trade Union Confederation and the International Labour Organization, ILO, on these issues. The Irish Government is a member of the governing body of the ILO at present and the ILO has a very strong position on the just transition. It has issued through the workers' group within the ILO very strong guidance on what the just transition looks like in a practical sense. In the work we have been doing over the last number of years we have been trying to get our members to understand the concept of climate change, what is happening and how they fit into that, in terms of not being afraid of it. A just transition is the answer to moving all of our workers, be they in the private or public sector - and not just those in the peat industry or transport sector, which are the immediate ones - into that low-carbon economy.

In fact, at international level trade unions have set up a just transition centre which is looking at best practice in how we engage with workers and also at how governments are putting forward such things as just transition forums across different countries to deal with these issues. I alluded to some examples earlier because those examples are not specific to an industry. They look at how we move our entire country and all our workers into a low carbon economy, starting with the workers in the high-carbon industries and moving onwards. For example, some forums are examining how we counterbalance this by investing in low carbon industries such as care work, where many women are working, the arts or education and how we invest our money there. Those sectors are growing, which is important as well. It is an all-encompassing approach.

Our energy sector committees and other committees deal with the workers who will be impacted upon first. In any union there are shop stewards and committees and we are engaging with them constantly, but what is missing is that social dialogue decision making forum in which we move from the concept and having the just transition on paper to the practicalities of how we do that, discuss it around the table and make a decision on how we move forward. At present, we do not have that. There has to be some leadership from the Government in that regard.