Ms Patricia King:

On this matter of redeployment, Bord na Móna as an organisation has known for a long time that this day was going to come. There is no evidence which suggests that it put in any finite plans to say, when the day comes, X, Y and Z will happen, this group of people will be redeployed here, or it is going to set up this and do that. None of those things is evident. If one is going to talk about where people will be redeployed, one first has to have jobs to which they can be redeployed. That pre-planning, to try to be fair about it, is light if it is existent at all. Therefore, we are saying we need to rescue this. "Rescue" is the word I am using and I am using it deliberately. The key ingredient in bringing that to fruition is the Bord na Móna management and board, who are very important in this, and one has to have a will from them to do it. For reasons I do not understand - I cannot give the committee the answers but if it asks them they may be able to provide the committee with the answers - they have not come to this party. They have not been in that space. They are a key to it and by absenting themselves from this conversation it is making it nearly impossible to bring about what it is we need to bring about. I suggested at the meeting with the Minister a way to rescue it. That meeting took place about eight weeks ago. All the issues of redeployment and of funding mechanisms would be subject to serious consideration at that forum, as well as all the experts, people, advice, information and everything else. However, one needs people with a will to do it.

If this company's will is to wind down, let people off, break any relationship they have with them and either stay in the game by starting off anew with no unions and lesser wages and all of that good stuff, if that is what they are at - they are showing strong indicators that is what they are at - then we are a voice in the wilderness on this. We are not going to accept that, so we are taking the opportunity at a very important fora like today to say what needs to happen. If that were to be successful, that means people will have a very strong chance of aspiring to decent work. That means those communities will have a very strong chance of surviving well and there are lots of positive pieces. It will probably be a combination of solutions. I am not going to sit here; I am a trade union official and I am not an expert in jobs in the green area and if I was I probably would be doing something else somewhere else. However, I do know industrial relations and I have been engaged for decades in this type of work. Sometimes people say that something is impossible and one will never get it. We can get it but one needs the will in the room to get it. The resources are there. The Department has assured me officially that it wants this transition to happen and for it to be positive. I see no reason why we cannot get to the other place.