John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

Given the season that is in it, there might have been an atmosphere for them to do that.

I want to say a sincere words of thanks to my officials, Regina Terry and Mary Joy, not only for their back-up support in the Seanad but for their prior briefing on the legislation. I very much respect the knowledge they have in this and other areas.

I wish to respond to one or two points raised but, first, I will formally respond to the debate on the Bill now that we have concluded our work on it. I will return to the issues raised by Senators Regan and Bacik. I thank the Senators for the support they expressed for the Bill.

This Bill is essentially an exercise in the consolidation and modernisation of our current arbitration law which, especially in the domestic sphere, has remained largely untouched since the enactment of the Arbitration Act 1954. The Bill will provide a single reference point for arbitration within this jurisdiction. It does that largely by giving the force of law to the Model Law of the United Nationals Commission on International Trade Law which is widely recognised as setting the standard for arbitration law.

The most important question to ask is what changes will occur in terms of Ireland's influence and what advantages will be gained on foot of enacting this Bill? We must make it clear that this is an attempt to give an assurance that there will be non-governmental intervention or involvement in this area. That is the first point to make. While it is not enough simply to rely on that, it is important our embassies promote the fundamental change provided for in this Bill. Ministers when they travel abroad on economic issues should promote this measure at every advantage. The process of attracting international arbitration business to this country is no different from the process which is dependent upon attracting other forms of mobile investment. The issue here relates to mobile investment.

It should be made clear that while international arbitration welcomes government support, it does not welcome government interference. That is the most important aspect of this Bill. To be fair, Senators across the House made this important point, namely to get the message across to the international community that this is change for good and that it will rely on arbitration in its purest sense. Quite clearly, there will be no government involvement.

In practice, and this is evident form other jurisdictions, it is the case that a certain amount of the promotion work has been done by those who are practitioners in the field. We have to rely also on practitioners. Such practitioners will be actively engaged in any arbitration work which takes place in Ireland. They will already have an innate understanding of the arbitration industry in Ireland as it stands now and, as such, I venture to say they are ideally placed to promote Ireland as a suitable venue for large-scale arbitrations. I understand that informal contacts have already taken place with relevant professional bodies in other jurisdictions which are aimed at forging the links which will help to channel arbitration business to this jurisdiction. On the passing of this legislation, it is up to the Government to ensure that in all promotional work, economical or otherwise, the change in this area is pointed out.

Senator Bacik raised a point on the previous occasion of the exclusion of certain types of employment disputes from the scope of this Bill. Section 30, which replicates section 5 of the Arbitration Act 1954, excludes arbitration under agreements relating to the terms and conditions of employment. An example of this exclusion would be provided under the consolidation arbitration schemes of the type which are common in the public service and which are sector specific. Also excluded is the arbitration under section 70 of the Industrial Relations Act 1946. That section empowers the Labour Court, with the consent of the parties, to refer an actual or apprehended trade dispute back to arbitration. To elaborate on that, a particular reason for the exclusion at the time was to ensure the various review mechanisms envisaged by the High Court would not apply in the case of such arbitration. The exclusion also recognised the fact that certain categories of labour dispute were catered for by the statute-based schemes of dispute resolution which had their own established specified codes or were governed de facto by their own established practice and procedures.

When the Bill was being developed, advice was sought from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment as to the appropriateness or otherwise of maintaining this particular exclusion. The Department was of the view that the application of the general framework of arbitration legislation in the type of case mentioned, which is covered in section 30 of the Bill, would lead to unnecessary confusion. It was also noted that, notwithstanding the exclusion, alternative dispute resolution methods have now become an important source of experimentation within the employment dispute area. The distinctive character of employment disputes and grievances and the related public framework for dispute resolution which exists were together seen as justifying the continued exclusionary provision contained in section 30 of the Bill.