Derek McDowell (Labour)

I wanted to hear the Minister of State's answer before I made it easy for him to say the Members disagree with each other and that, as he is in the middle, he will keep the Bill as is. We have obvious difficulties in so far as Senator Quinn is seeking to make it more difficult for people to move from direct involvement to collective representation, whereas we do not believe there should be direct involvement in the first place. There should only be a system of collective representation.

I do not quite understand what direct involvement means. Will the Minister of State give examples of where he thinks direct involvement works well? Perhaps it is an old-fashioned notion but my idea of consultation involves at least two people sitting in a room with one giving information, the other receiving it and then both discussing it. The Minister of State may say this could be exercised by someone sending out an e-mail or newsletter but if we set the threshold this low and say that sending an e-mail twice a year to employees is sufficient by way of information, we render the entire Bill meaningless.

I am interested in hearing about examples where the Minister of State considers that direct involvement amounts to best practice and why he considers it so. It is not unreasonable to require direct face-to-face involvement and if there is direct face-to-face involvement — clearly it cannot be achieved with everybody — it must be done on a representative basis.