Mr. John O'Brien:

On the question as to whether we are the only ones, the answer is "Yes". All the other staff groups right across the 13 categories have been paid the award. All the awards were capped at 5% in 2008 or 2009 because of the downturn. The original intention was that they would be paid over three phases. Certain grades got higher awards than 5%; some got 10%, 12% and so on. I cannot remember all the details but they are set out in the documentation. We are the only ones that have been picked out for this kind of unfair treatment, as we view it, and we have lived with this basic injustice for the past 15 years.

We would be grateful for any help the committee can give us. As I said earlier, if members want to delve more deeply into this, we have a raft of correspondence supporting everything we have said today. We are asking the committee to intervene with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and, in turn, to ask the Minister for Health to direct the Secretary General to issue the letter of sanction from the Department. That is the only missing piece we can see in all of this, unless some other rabbit is pulled out of the hat. There have been many such instances over the past 15 years that have served to block this award.