Mr. John Shine:

That is something we have looked at. As Senator Gavan mentioned, there are examples of that elsewhere across Europe and we looked at those. We are trying to provide for a broad church here; we are not legislating specifically for any particular sector or type of co-operative activity, whether it be worker co-operatives, social enterprises or whatever. The proposed legislation is broad and enabling in nature. It is also designed to offer particular advantages in the future. This is because it will modernise matters and make the running of co-operatives so much easier. There are a lot of advantages coming from the proposed legislation.