Alan Dillon

But Minister, can I ask?

No, it won't.

And I suppose Ireland's tradition of volunteers has been to the core of our representation.

And this means that no one is forced into union membership or agreements.

And as I said earlier, this isn't about imposing unions.

This is about having an action plan that can move the dial in regards to how we work closer together.

And this has been formed with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

They have been very much to the fore of this, along with IBEC.

And indeed, government's role is to ensure that we support both sides and make it easier.

And I think this action plan is very much an Irish solution to an Irish challenge today.

built with social partners and indeed taking best practices from Europe and that will build on our own system of voluntary industrial relations and I think this will result in protections for Irish competitiveness while strengthening fairness across the board.

Well, certainly the place of work has changed dramatically.

So in terms of the WRC or the Labour Court, there is an investment plan that will be required in terms of digitalisation, and that is very much part of this strategy.

We are looking to invest...

over the term of this five years.

And we see how important the WRC is in resolving disputes, but also the Labour Court.

And indeed, we recognise that collective bargaining does put a firm focus on how valuable workers are.

play in specific sectors we have seen most recently if you look at the joint labor committees um through the early years or child care sectors we have seen how employers and workers have been brought together to agree fair pay and conditions uh and when they work well they prevent disputes and give business certainty and we've seen that in in most recent employment regulations

They will be worked through, Tom.

And again, I suppose this morning we're launching the strategy.