Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I said, I hope to bring forward an action plan and implementation plan that I can bring to Government before the summer recess. I hope to be able to do that in June. Certainly, people who have studied the detail of this report will understand that quite a lot of consultation is required before we can do that. It is important to give it that time but we do not want to waste any time either. I assure the Deputy we are not doing that. I have started discussions with the representative bodies and others to put that implementation plan together.

The Deputy is correct that some of the recommendations, in particular that relating to associate membership of ICTU, should the representative bodies want that, is timely because a new round of public sector pay talks will start before the summer. I am conscious of that but it would certainly be helpful in those efforts, and I could speak in a much more open way with the representative bodies, if a court case was not happening in parallel to these discussions.

See this speech in context