I will bring up the issue of the medical scientists' industrial action and direct it to the Minister for Health, as he is here. The remarkable decision not to return to the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, after last week's day of action needs to be answered properly. The Taoiseach said that there have been "informal" talks but in his next sentence, he said that things have to be done "transparently". Where is the transparency in that? I have to ask the Minister of Health the question that was asked of me this morning on the picket line: is this a deliberate tactic by the Government to break the resolve of the workers? I refer to the decision not to return to the WRC in the last week. We see more spin by the Government today that there will be an expansion of the number of medical scientists by more than 4%. Actually, it is not expansion, it is replacement because of the retention crisis they have. Is this a deliberate tactic to break the resolve of the workers? If not, can the Minister understand why the workers would believe that it is?

What we want is very clear. We want all sides to engage in the established dispute resolution mechanisms. The Public Sector Agreement Group, PSAG, was used twice, as the Deputy will be aware. The recommendation for PSAG under Building Momentum was that all sides would revert to the WRC, critically without industrial action. We are all aware that it is causing very significant disruption to the acute sector. There are patients waiting on quite urgent surgery who are having that surgery cancelled. The Deputy and I know that none of those on the picket lines want that. They have worked incredibly hard. They have done incredibly difficult and vital work right through the pandemic. We want to see this resolved. I assure the Deputy and all of the workers that the Government very much wants to see engagement at the WRC. If a-----

Time is up.

-----resolution cannot be found at the WRC, we would like to see a move to the Labour Court for the issue to be resolved.