Ms Nichola Harkin:

-----who do not wish to recognise a trade union. What I would also say is - as we have been in this room before talking about the adequate minimum wage directive and the transposition of that directive - we are working, under the auspices of LEEF, with our colleagues in ICTU and the Department on the transposition of the adequate minimum wage directive. We are looking at what I think was a really useful report of the high-level working group on collective bargaining with regard to promoting collective bargaining in industrial relations in Ireland, and we are working really closely with ICTU and the Department on looking at how we can transpose the adequate minimum wage directive and implement the recommendations of the high-level working group report. It is not what we are here to talk about today but I think it is important to note that.

Our other point - and Kara can feel free to jump in here - is this is a really wide issue. We need to look at this in the round. We cannot make it a straightforward issue of stating that if we fix one element, recruitment and retention is simply fixed. I have said before that within the HSE there is trade union recognition and collective bargaining but there are still recruitment and retention issues in the HSE and the health sector overall. We know it is a broader issue and that there is a lot at play here. In the report, we have set out a number of ways we believe these recruitment and retention issues can be addressed. We are not saying they are the only ways-----