Michelle Mulherin (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Exactly. It does no harm.

We also see frivolous cases being taken under the planning code, which can hold up projects. That goes with the territory. I would have to agree with Senator O'Keeffe in that regard. It is daunting for employers.

We are getting into all sorts of conundrums trying to protect against this situation. Let us face it, we are not just talking about employees here. We are talking about people who hide behind the corporate veil and do all sorts of things, which they seem to get away with. People set up limited companies for no other reason than the fact they could trade in whatever way they liked. There are laws that require them to conduct themselves in a certain way but we know that does not happen.

Yesterday, we dealt with the Construction Contracts Bill and it is the same story. People traded recklessly, to say the least, and left disaster in their wake. I understand the raison d'être for company law. All capitalist societies need to have it and we want to encourage people to speculate and be risk takers but there comes a point when we must acknowledge that the cost of that is externalised. It is externalised for Mr. O'Sullivan, for subcontractors who do not get paid and for the State which must trump up money from an insolvency fund but people get away with it. It is not that many of these people who abuse the corporate veil are left destitute. They are not left destitute because they are clever enough to have their assets transferred to a spouse or otherwise. We see that happening.

As we evolve as a society, it is a challenge for us to lay down the gauntlet. Our company law, in particular, has been responsible for cultivating a mind-set of recklessness, no more than the financial recklessness which went on in this country. The larger the profile of the person, the harder it is to get him or her. I welcome the comments that some of these things will be tackled, which is definitely overdue.

We are all very familiar with the painful stories of people who are in debt and who made the wrong decision about buying. Many people bought their houses at wrong time and now face personal insolvency but they are taking responsibility for their actions. It is not right for employers to act recklessly and think somebody else will pay the price for their adventures in business. If we can curb that sort of thing, we are doing society a justice. It costs time, money and effort when it is entertained. We need to rethink this.

Companies have been protected for too long by the corporate veil, which not pierced enough. The Statute Book covers fraud, etc., and there is a fine line there but in terms of calibrating the rights and learning from the mess of the Celtic tiger, I hope this will be addressed in the company law legislation. Dialogue is needed about responsibility in the broader sense.

I refer to some of the points raised by Mr. O'Sullivan, including damages and the concern that people are simply doing what they should have been doing in the first place. I wonder about punitive or aggravated damages in this context. The complaint was that there is not a standard formula which, I presume, leaves some discretion towards punitive-type damages. There is only so far one can go with de-formalising these things because one is talking about somebody asserting a legal right. There must, therefore, be a forensic examination of evidence to arrive at a well-grounded decision that somebody's rights have been breached.

People have rights but they must be able to access them. We are dealing with the issue of accessibility to rights. From my experience of appearing before the Employment Appeals Tribunal compared to the District Court or the Circuit Court, it is a more relaxed format as the panel would encourage and draw out evidence from the person. I do not discount for one moment that it may be traumatic at times for a lay litigant to appear before the EAT. There must be a certain formality in the process. I would have concerns if we move too far away from decisions being made in public. We are already moving away from that in family law. We know there is a downside to that. Justice must operate in public. The EAT is a quasi-judicial body that must conduct its hearings in public. We need to know what is happening for a myriad of reasons. I do not think we will ever get away from the formality, but there is an important reason for it. No matter what aspect of the law one deals with, be it employment law or family law, if somebody does not want to help and wants to be awkward, they will succeed. Under due process, time and space is allowed for litigants. Litigants are allowed to make excuses. I do not know how one would get away from it unless there is an ideal world, in which people do not employ those types of tactics.