Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have three points to make in response. The information I have, which of course I will check given the point the Deputy made, is that FÁS was not at the Labour Court and had not consented to the matter being taken to the Labour Court for determination. Given that Deputy Calleary has information to the contrary on that point I will take that into account but the information I have is pretty clear in that regard.

The second point I would make is that Deputy Calleary should think about where we were at that point in time. It was 2008 and we had had a number of years of rapid economic growth. The FÁS organisation was a significant beneficiary of much of that economic growth across that period. In the many years in which significant resources were available, leading right up to the crash period, a pathway was not found to resolve that issue. The reason for that is as I outlined earlier in my initial reply to the Deputy, and also the fact that despite what he said regarding it being possible to settle one matter without having knock-on claims elsewhere, he knows how difficult it is to do that. When one makes progress in one area, within seconds of that progress being made there are other groups who legitimately feel that if one can do something for one group, in particular when it comes to industrial relations, that one has got to do the same for another group.

Deputy Calleary has a lot of experience in this area and he will appreciate the challenge this matter poses, in particular when we have so many other organisations, especially in the health service who are in a similar situation in that we have people working within them who are dependent on funding from the State to provide the service but are not employed by the State. For those reasons the scoping process to which I referred has been set up to get an understanding of the number of people we are talking about and the cost involved in dealing with the matter. The process is under way and will be complete by the end of the year.

I do not know why the forum meeting was deferred a few weeks ago but I imagine it had something to do with all the work that was under way in relation to the FEMPI legislation. I will ensure that the commitment on the next meeting is upheld.

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