Mr. Dermot Mulligan:

There are two significant things we are looking at in the space of collective bargaining. First, there is the European directive on the adequacy of minimum wages and collective bargaining. As part of that, we have a responsibility to prepare an action plan to promote collective bargaining in the country. We have been very involved in the making of the directive and the European Commission has been holding a number of workshops for member states to help them in formulating their action plan. That work is still ongoing and we are still participating in the process. The process will hopefully be finished by the autumn and we will then proceed to develop our own action plan in that space. We are doing that in close consultation with social partners.

The other piece in the collective bargaining area is the preparation of a high-level report as part of LEEF, which was prepared by the social partners. It is an agreed report on how to change the system so it assists with collective bargaining and it makes a number of changes in that regard. There is a working group including the social partners chaired by the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, and a meeting took place two weeks ago to review how to progress that. As Mr. Hughes said, work is well advanced but there is still a lot to do in relation to that. There are quite a number of legal issues to analyse and examine, some of them constitutional, as part of that ongoing work. We have committed that we will bring a memorandum to Government by the end of the year on the proposals around that. That is what we are working to.