Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

That has always been my position. As the Deputy knows, there was an IR problem in the FÁS test case that was taken and everybody stepped back to wait and see the outcome. That is fair enough and I understand that. The Labour Court suggested how we would proceed. The Labour Court did not present a recommendation and tell us to go back to the status quo ante but provided a means by which we could proceed from there with that clarification, which was necessary and I will not have a quibble with it. I respect the outcome of the Labour Court and its recommendation. We must move on, but the problem is we are not moving on. The best industrial practice is that we act on all aspects of a recommendation. The recommendation covered specifics and the general approach that should be adopted to see how we can resolve the problem generally.

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