That is what is being said. We need to be careful not to undermine what has been a strength of our democracy, namely, our apolitical Defence Forces. That is important, irrespective of who is in government. We are all birds of passage. We hope this legislation will apply for a significant period. Much of what is in the Bill is already in regulations and, in fact, may be less restrictive than the existing Defence Forces regulations. We wrote to the committee on 2 April. It is unacceptable to say that we did not take …

No, and a member does not have to identify himself or herself as a member of the Defence Forces when criticising the Government or engaged in agitation and so forth. I went back to the Attorney General after Committee Stage because I was concerned about the piece around representative associations and whether they might be restricted in representing their members and so on. We put in an amendment to state that anything included as a prohibited activity was without prejudice to their role as representatives of their…

The existing wording is "without prejudice to the purpose of an association of representing members".

It is very clear.

I did not say they would.

What are we trying to do here? We are trying to facilitate association membership of ICTU for the representative associations.

It is positive. This legislation is positive. It is an advance on 1990. It is an advance on the legislation that gave rise to the representative associations. A bit more positivity here is called for. What we are speaking about is being in uniform. That is what the Bill says.

Deputy Cronin took issue with me using the phrase "in uniform". That is what the Bill says. We are not saying people cannot have views as citizens of the country. Of course they can have views as citizens of the country.

We are not. If you read the Bill it is very clear with regard to being in uniform or people otherwise making themselves identifiable as members of the permanent Defence Forces. We are trying to preserve the apolitical nature of the Defence Forces. That is what we are trying to do. It is already in Defence Forces regulations, as Deputy Cronin has acknowledged.

The idea that we are insulting anybody is outrageous. There is no intention to do that. We are protecting people from potential embroilment in all sorts of issues. We are maintaining the framework within which the Defence Forces operate. We are advancing it insofar as they will now enjoy statutory underpinning of association membership with ICTU. This is an advance. To respond to Deputy Howlin's point, I want to be very clear because I double-checked with the Attorney General on the "without prejudice" piece in sec…

No, that would not be right. That would not be correct. For example, the conciliation and arbitration mechanism is well used by the representative associations on a range of issues. We have come a long way since 1990.

Deputy Lahart outlined its origins. The formation and establishment by former Fianna Fáil Minister for Defence Brian Lenihan senior in respect of the representative associations was a breakthrough at the time. We have advanced since then. There is healthy engagement with RACO and PDFORRA. I do not think they could argue there is any attempt to restrict. I must stress that we listened to what they said with regard to, for example, any potential debarment from membership of the military judge and military prosecutor …

No, it is not.

Not individually.

The Deputy does not have to. I will explain it later.

Deputy Boyd Barrett does not know what is in the Bill, as he acknowledged.

The process. It deals with the grievance process, not individual complaints.

That is what I am trying to clarify. It is not individual complaints. I will come back to it.

It is because it is exasperating to listen to this nonsense.

I apologise for nodding my head all the time, but in fairness to the Deputy, and I do not mean this in any bad way, he did say that he had come to the Bill and has not been following it to an extensive degree.