Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

Where exceptional circumstances are deemed to apply, the Minister can amend the regulations and, accordingly, make a decision to exclude a group of workers or amend the imposition of section 2.

I again ask that the Minister of State take note of the submission I presented to his officials on Second Stage concerning a company, the employees of which appear to be in no man's land in regard to the imposition of the possible pay cut. This company is operating commercially as a private company - 51% of it is owned by Teagasc while the remaining 49% of it is owned by the co-operative movement. The employees in question, unlike all public sector employees, were not subject to benchmarking and the associated pay increases. They have entered into some type of public sector pension scheme recently.

The case they have made would suggest they should not come under the terms of this pay deduction. I appreciate cases must be looked at on an individual basis. I note that under this section, one can make particular arrangements for cases. I ask the Minister of State to try to look sympathetically on the submission by this group of employees who are not public servants in the conventional sense and whose terms of employment and pay is quite different from normal public sector provisions.