Mr. John Conlon:

There were two particular instances in play. Staff in the south west were working without a base. There were arrangements in place in that area and in construction in the eastern region whereby an agreed amount of money, called “country money”, was payable to these people for their travelling to and from work because they had no bases. That arrangement worked well for years and was agreed by the Construction Industry Federation. In the cases in question, a decision was made by staff quite some number of years ago to also be paid some travel and subsistence on their Monday and Friday journeys to and from the sites on which they were working. That was inappropriate-----