Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 29 April 2015
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications
General Scheme of Road Traffic Bill 2015: Discussion (Resumed)
11:00 am
Mr. Joe Kenny:
I will add to that. One of the big differences between the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act and the proposed legislation is that the proposed legislation applies to critical safety tasks. One of the difficulties with the original 2005 legislation is that it covered all employees whereas this proposed legislation is more focused on HGV and PSV drivers, and for that reason it is more amenable to people to accept it.
It also gets over another hurdle, which is that it would be a level playing field for everybody, which is one of the difficulties we experienced, both from a corporate point of view, because we would like everyone to be subject to the same rules and regulations, and also from the employees' point of view, because they would like to see that they are not being singled out in any particular employment. So, for that reason, we welcome it as a single piece of legislation rather than as an addendum to the 2005 Act.
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