Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 7, inclusive, together.

As agreed with the social partners, the negotiations are being conducted on a strand-based approach. The first strand within the negotiations on a new pay agreement has focused on the issue of employment standards. A great deal of time and energy has been devoted to this but it is important for all of us that we get the right balance between ensuring decent employment standards while maintaining our competitiveness, flexibility and attractiveness to investment. A number of plenary and bilateral meetings have been held in this regard and contacts are ongoing with a view to establishing the scope and possibilities that exist for agreement on the issue. I hope, with a bit of goodwill and flexibility on all sides, we will be able to move on soon to address pay and other workplace related issues.

A round of bilateral meetings has also taken place with each of the four pillars — trade union, business-employer, farming and community and voluntary — at which the pillars have set out in greater detail their key issues and priorities for a new agreement of which the pay agreement would be one part. Subsequent plenary meetings have discussed, inter alia, the National Economic and Social Council report, The Developmental Welfare State, the Fitzpatrick Associates review of the special initiatives implemented under Sustaining Progress, the implications of the proposed long-term framework for social partnership, the macroeconomic context for the negotiations and the economic, environmental, infrastructural and social policy priorities within a new agreement.

A further round of multilateral engagement on more specific priorities in respect of these wider non-pay issues, where the social partners have agreed that a long-term perspective is appropriate for full implementation, has also been completed. The primary purpose of this round of engagement is to secure from the partners greater clarity and detail concerning what they consider might be achieved through the social partnership process in each of the identified thematic areas.

While I have not been directly involved since the initial plenary meeting on 2 February, I am kept fully informed by the Secretary General of my Department, who is chairing the ongoing negotiations. Officials of the relevant Departments are participating in the talks. The positions to be finally agreed in the context of these talks will reflect the Government's policy priorities, since the response to the social partners in the talks is determined by my colleagues and I. At this point, it seems unlikely that the negotiations can be concluded by Easter.

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