Mr. Kevin Duffy:

If there is a prohibition on dismissing people within the 30-day period, we did suggest in the narrative rather than as a specific proposal that by analogy with the provision under the Maternity Protection Act, for example, a dismissal in those circumstances could be regarded as a nullity. That could mean that the dismissals had no effect and so technically the people would continue to be employees of the company up to the expiry of the consultation period. A situation could arise where there simply is no money to pay them and that would have to be taken into account. In that situation their wages would be recoverable in any event under the employers insolvency legislation but it would take some time to do that and there may be issues arising around the provision of social welfare in those circumstances. Insofar as there was a reference to that, it was simply pointing out something that could arise. It would not necessarily arise because it may well be that the liquidator can continue to pay the employees for the consultation period. That is the situation referenced in the report. We were not getting into the question of the social welfare code or what benefits people might be entitled to or anything of that nature. We were simply proposing that if there is a prohibition on giving effect to collective redundancies for 30 days then logically it could be argued that collective redundancies given effect in contravention of that provision could be regarded as a nullity. In this regard, we refer to a similar provision under the Maternity Protection Act where, for example, if a woman is dismissed while on maternity leave, that is a nullity. It had no legal effect and the woman continued as an employee. That is what we had in mind in that proposal. We were not, as I said, getting into the social welfare code or anything like that because it was not within our terms of reference or, I would suggest, our competence to do so.