Mr. Ronan Slevin:

Consultation has not yet begun on that. There are requests for a meeting to begin the process. Our association has outstanding issues, unfortunately, which will affect our participation in those discussions going forward. Our conference is taking decisions on the imposition of that unagreed suspension policy, the attempts to change the sickness policy in respect of our members' terms and conditions, as well as the outstanding subsistence and travel issue which has been ongoing within the organisation for the last eight years and has yet to be resolved. Unfortunately, our conference has directed us not to partake in anything to do with the EU Presidency until those issues have been sorted.