The Minister of State said that the Government were committed to reviewing and updating the industrial relations machinery in regard to the public service. Can he tell the House when the industrial relations machinery was last updated and in what regard?

Modifications have taken place in the schemes on numerous occasions. They have to go through elaborate proceedings to be agreed with the unions and so forth.

Can the Minister give a recent example of a positive change in industrial relations machinery?

I do not have that information here. If the Deputy asks a specific question about what modifications were made I will give him the answer.

The Chair would like to help Deputies but I cannot condone questions which do not arise relevantly from the basic question.

Is the Minister aware that 95 per cent of the work of his Department relates to industrial relations in the public sector? The information made available here by him in relation to those questions shows, to say the least, that he is totally unaware of what is happening in his Department.

(Cavan-Monaghan): Would the Minister agree that, if certain procedures which are available for the settlement of disputes have broken down and are seen not to have worked, it is time those were changed and that the Minister took some action to have them changed?

I would not accept that they have broken down. In the great majority of cases the existing procedures have been acceptable to both sides.

(Cavan-Monaghan): Is it not a fact that in one particular Department since last Christmas there have been two major disputes? The dispute which took place at Christmas was seen to be the fault of the Department. Does that not show that in that Department industrial relations are non-existent and that the procedures are outdated?

The unions and staff associations involved are working the machinery and are quite satisfied with it.

(Cavan-Monaghan): The Minister of State is the only one who is because the general public are not.

The unions and the staff associations are operating the system every day.

(Cavan-Monaghan): The Minister says they are not. There is a strike crippling the country at the moment because the unions will not accept the present procedure.

In view of the Minister's unsatisfactory answer, I would like to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

I will communicate with the Deputy.