Mr. Justin McCamphill:

Dr. Farry mentioned Mr. Reidy's comments on the nature of employment relations and he is quite right to be proud of what was done in 2015 to prevent the imposition of the Trade Union Act on Northern Ireland, which, as we can see from our counterparts in Great Britain, is having an enormously negative impact both on trade unions themselves and how they operate and on the rights and conditions of service of workers as a consequence. Since then, there has been further legislation, such as the minimum services Bill, which will be even more detrimental.

On the social partnership model, Mr. Boyle will probably talk more about in the context of what happens in the South. I have been an ICTU president only since July, so I have not had much engagement, but I have been to a sub-committee meeting of the Labour Employer Economic Forum, LEEF. I know there is work going on in the South that we are not taking part in in the North. We are having conversations about the shared island, and we have never really had that level of formal engagement, at least in my time, at ICTU in the North.

I might skip the next question, given Mr. Boyle might be better placed to answer it.

On the education systems, they are radically different. There was a great deal of conversation earlier about the Irish language, and that is an issue on which teachers in Northern Ireland would like to know they can continue on, still qualified to teach as normal, while still being able to access the new curriculum. Any new curriculum would need to be worked out. There are issues with the curriculum in Northern Ireland as it is. The push for a lot of examinations at the age of 16, as applies in Northern Ireland, is not good. We should be looking at a model where more subjects are studied through to 18, but in the event of a new political arrangement, there would have to be a transition to that while, at the same time, protecting the existing rights of teachers in order that they would not be disadvantaged if they were to move to the South in the context of the Irish language requirement.