Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

As I said, I intend to continue to meet the social partners as appropriate and I made that clear to them. Together with the Tánaiste, I hope to have full twice yearly meetings with them. Clearly, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation is concerned about these matters. I repeat that the well proven mechanisms of the State are available where unfortunately disputes arise, as they do on a pretty regular basis.

I do not intend to have a return to the kind of formal process that applied before but I have encouraged every Minister to engage bilaterally with the parties which might be relevant to their responsibilities. The question of legislation beyond where we are does not arise at this time.

The machinery has been tried and tested over many years and I would hope that, in the case of Vita Cortex and any other dispute, that process would be used and tested in order to see if a resolution can be brought about to what are sensitive and serious disputes affecting people and their families.

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