Mr. Niall McCutcheon:

I will ask my colleagues to answer the specific questions on company law and enforcement. Deputy Boyd Barrett questioned me on the reason for the exercise and whether it was an exercise in cuts in disguise. The initiative came very much from those who are involved in dealing with employment rights claims. Five organisations have overlapping and sometimes completely separate objectives and operations. Even experienced legal practitioners found the system difficult to comprehend. Claims were often referred to the wrong forum or under the wrong statute. Sometimes the claims became statute barred due to the delay. There is a lack of consistency in some cases between the bodies and sometimes within the bodies regarding the procedures to be followed.

The system is overly legalistic. A set of circumstances may arise in respect of a single relationship between an employer and an employee which could give rise to claims within up to four different fora. The idea is to try to pool the resources we have and to provide a service in which one hearing can dispose of all the disputes between a single employer and an employee. That in itself is a good thing. If one pools resources the situation would be more efficient and cost effective but the focus is not on saving money, as such. The focus is on providing a better service for people such as the petitioner and employers and employees generally.

Senator Cullinane inquired about the legislation. I am currently in discussion with the parliamentary draftsman on the legislation and we hope to be in a position to publish the Bill in October of this year. In the meantime, steps are being taken within the existing legal framework to improve efficiency.

There are no backlogs with the rights commissioner service of the Labour Relations Commission or the Labour Court. The delay in the Equality Tribunal for mediation of cases is down to three months. Serious delays remain at the Employment Appeals Tribunal, EAT, and the Equality Tribunal in the investigation of actual hearings and can go on in excess of a year. We have asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to allow rights commissioners to be appointed as equality officers so they can hear equality cases as well.