Dr. Jonathan Lavelle:

I am not entirely sure how we got to this position. European works councils, particularly in an Irish context, are very new. Information and consultation rights are very new in an Irish context. While they are in their infancy at a European level, they are especially so in the Irish context. We are trying to figure out how this works with regard to enforcement and the like. This is not just an Irish story. If one looks across Europe, there is a lot of variability in the area of enforcement. Concerns around enforcement and variability across European countries are among the key issues around campaigns for updating the directive again. This is a very new institutional structure that we are still trying to figure out. It is contested as we know and because it is contested, we are still trying to figure it out. It is going to be subject to further debate on the back of, for example, the European Parliament's recent report.