Ms Maeve McElwee:

It is important to say first that we have not dragged our heels on any aspect of coming to the table in this regard. I hope the congress agrees with that. We have stepped up and engaged fully and in good faith to bring this forward. The question I am asked is whether we need to have the legislation in place to transpose the directive and the answer is that we do not. Have we made recommendations that will change how we address and look at collective bargaining? Yes, we have. We recognise that some of the issues we are working through in some of the Labour Employer Economic Forum, LEEF, subgroups will require administrative change. We have outlined those changes. The Government has come back to say that some of our recommendations will require changes to legislation. It has to look at that issue and the interaction with other pieces of legislation and come back to us. Rest assured that there is no heel dragging on the IBEC side. We are happy to engage on the recommendations that we supported and helped to draft. None of that legislation is required to be in place before the transposition. That transposition can still go ahead and the legislation will follow. We are certainly not putting any impediment in the way of the Government coming forward to look at how it can make the legislation happen so we can move the recommendations forward.