Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

My only amendment in this grouping is amendment No. 24.  The Minister has echoed the principle of this amendment.  Why is there a threshold of ten employees?  I imagine he has an eye on avoiding anything that is overly onerous on smaller businesses, and I appreciate that.  That is legitimate, but given that we are no longer living in an era of tablets of stone and the use of quills and ink and that we have IT systems and so on, I do not imagine the registration procedure should be so onerous that we need to be sensitive to employee numbers.  The Minister and I have tabled an amendment with the same principle, but the threshold of ten employees still features in the legislation.  Will the Minister indicate the rationale for that? I do not see it.