Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank both Deputies for raising this. I expect they appreciate that there is a negotiation process ongoing and that I would be very slow to impact that adversely, so I will not comment on the details except to reiterate and to acknowledge the work of CE supervisors, assistant supervisors and participants across the country. I have met supervisors and participants from Newmarket, Ballina, Killinarden and Churchfield in the past four or five weeks.

The work they do is astonishing and their embeddedness in communities is remarkable. They are not looking for thanks from me this morning. It would be remiss of me to go into too much detail on what is happening in the negotiations, other than to say we are examining the counterproposal from the unions and we hope to respond to it in the coming weeks.

See this speech in context