Mr. Gerry McCormack:

The Acting Chairman asked about collective bargaining. As my colleague Mr. Sheridan has said, the truth of it is that there is no provision for collective bargaining in this State. It is a complete and utter disaster for workers because nobody can vindicate their right to collectively bargain with their employer. There are processes taking place at the moment between the Government, the trade unions and employers, and we would hope that would come to some conclusion, but in reality we have a deficiency in Ireland in this regard, which Mr. Hayes well knows. This makes a big difference when one comes to talk about European works councils. Many of the companies that Mr. Hayes has outlined do not have collective bargaining with us here in Ireland. They may very well have processes in other European countries but they do not have them here in Ireland. It is certainly a huge deficiency, as the Acting Chairman will quite well know.