Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The position is Kieran Mulvey has come in. He was a former director general of the Workplace Relations Commission but he has not come to take on the role of the Workplace Relations Commission. Kieran Mulvey is a man of considerable experience who has taken on the task I set out in my earlier reply, namely, to liaise with community interests across the region. He will also look at things such as the just transition fund, which specifically makes provision for the retraining of workers, and he will make sure that redeployment and those opportunities to reach new jobs are available to Bord na Móna workers. He is not there to replicate the service of the Workplace Relations Commission. As I understand it, the way the joint industrial relations council works is that it is chaired by an independent person who is from the Workplace Relations Commission itself and issues that cannot be resolved there can be escalated to the Workplace Relations Commission in the normal way. I would expect Bord na Móna to co-operate with that process, just as I would expect trade unions to do.

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