Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I welcome the clarification from the Minister of State. I am concerned with the outcome, although that has nothing to do with the legislation, and wish to pick up on some of the points made by the Minister of State. He said, quite correctly, that it would not be appropriate for the Department to make proposals on this matter to the trustees at this time. I agree fully with this as such proposals must come from one of the other groups, namely the worker trustees. The Minister of State was clear about the implications of the legislation and it was helpful that he gave a clear interpretation of the trust and its legality.

The Minister of State made two points. First, the ESOT can only give out shares after it receives them, as that is part of the rules of the trust. Effectively, what must be changed, to benefit those for whom we spoke recently, is the date from which this becomes applicable which, as of now, is the date of the receipt of shares. Although that is simply a date change, it must go through the process.

Arising from the fact that people bought into this by way of the prospectus issued in June last year, it may be the case, as the Minister of State stressed, that in order to enable any changes to take place the trustees might consider it a requirement to ballot all members. I understand that but some points need to be made.

There is a question of equity here. Workers on pensions are effectively getting deferred wages or salaries. It is important to recognise that these people were given this option in the first place because they agreed to make sacrifices while they were still employed. The changes made were specific, measurable and easily quantifiable. As I have stated previously, these people agreed to forego the increases due to them under the national agreement, which was quite significant, at a time when the workers had already come out of the belt-tightening of the Cahill plan and other changes. In effect they were paying for the future allocation of shares by doing this.

In addition, they agreed to a combination of changed work practices and a series of redundancies and workforce reductions which increased productivity significantly. That productivity is also directly attributable to their input and sacrifice, all of which was done on the basis that they would get their day in the sun with the share option scheme. That was understood by everyone.

I have not read the prospectus but it was surely intended to be made available to all the potential beneficiaries, whose names are listed. It is not as if some of them were away at a certain time — we know who they all are. I ask the Minister of State and his Department to take a special interest in this issue. I am not arguing with him on the legal aspect, and I agree with the importance of the Department standing back from a matter which would be better dealt with by workers' representatives, but there is a broader issue here of trust and confidence. What is happening in An Post at present is a rerun of what happened in the airports several years ago when we decided on the solution I outlined earlier. I do not want a trade union official dealing with the An Post issue to have someone at a meeting say: "We might agree to something now, but I know people in Aer Lingus who agreed to a proposal but because of their age they had left before it was implemented and they were screwed." That is the kind of thing which, ultimately, makes life difficult for everyone, so there is an issue of good faith here also.

There are legal issues and responsibilities which arise from the establishment of the ESOP and we also have issues of trust and confidence in human resource procedures. For that reason, while workers will appreciate the commitments given by the Minister of State today, I ask him to get the Government to take an interest in ensuing these workers get their due in equity.