Mr. Willie Noone:

I thank Deputy Naughten. Deputy Naughten has put his finger on the pulse of what is actually occurring here. It is not the quantum of the funds that is the main issue at the moment. We are trying to look for some sort of pathway. Whatever funds are there and whatever the quantum is, and they are obviously is not enough, we need to identify those funds going to the workers affected, because at the moment they are going into forums and into committees and the workers who are affected cannot see how they are going to benefit from them.

Deputy Naughten is right about Athlone IT. That has been identified by Congress as being a campus that we believe would be hugely beneficial.

The first thing that ESB management did was to bring us in, explain to us how many employees were there at the time, how many they wanted in the future, what jobs were available for them and the timeframe for transitioning those employees across. I have been talking to Bord na Móna for the past six months and I still do not know how many people it will want in any location in three weeks' time. That is how bad it is.

The National Economic and Social Council, NESC, asked Bord na Móna if it had done a skills audit. It has not done such an audit. Bord na Móna has no interest in matching up the current workforce with what work may or may not be available in the future.

I am glad the issue of age was raised. Bord na Móna has an unwritten rule whereby people work to finish. Anyone over the age of 62, unless it is someone working in a location where there is absolutely no work, will not be allowed to leave under any circumstances. That is fundamentally wrong because statutory redundancy is all that these people would get. Bord na Móna is holding those people hostage because hundreds of them are seasonal workers who have no guarantee of work and are in precarious employment. Bord na Móna is holding on to these employees but will not give a guarantee that, for example, an employee who got eight months' work last year will get eight months' work next year. That employee might only get three or four months' work. These employees are being held hostage.

I encountered a case yesterday where the company refused two people the opportunity to work past the age of 65. The two individuals in question are scheduled to retire next January and February, respectively, and cannot access the State pension. Bord na Móna will not allow them to continue working beyond the age of 65, even though there is still work available and the company has contractors who are going around sites and doing work. This is the farcical position we are in. That is why we are trying to cut it out.

We need to get the funds identified with the workers and we also need a forum. The only argument the company has used about going to the Workplace Relations Commission has been its concern that the trade unions would throw the kitchen sink at the WRC. We agree that there is no need to do that. In case there is any doubt, we have no difficulty in going to the WRC and dealing with 65% or 70% of the issues. However, in parallel, we need a forum in place to do exactly what the Deputy said about the ESB. We do not believe the ESB has done enough. The company could do more and we still do not know what its plans are for a number of thee sites. We do not know what may be available to ESB or Bord na Móna employees on those sites in future. More should be done but we cannot discuss that at the moment because we do not have the proper forum.