Ms Patricia Callan:

I watched the session with Deputy Cullinane last week. What strikes me is the idea that Deputy Quinlivan can say it is a simple Bill. It should be read word for word. We are the ones who ultimately must comply with the legislation. We are giving the committee our best guess as to how difficult it will be to comply with what is in the Bill and its unintended consequences. Any of us can come up with a good concept, but if one goes through the Bill literally, word for word, it has many unintended consequences. Is that good legislation? We have demonstrated today many of these practical issues.

Going back to the point about Googling, if the Bill is made law and I am the employer and does not want to be in breach of the legislation, I cannot rely on this in my defence before a tribunal, wherever I might end up, if I make a mistake. Again, good employers comply properly but they will also consider this and will make decisions to ensure they avoid any of the liability under the provisions of the Bill. Therefore, one must ask whether the Bill will achieve the desired consequences in the majority of employments. Again, going back to Deputy Neville's point, no matter what Deputy Quinlivan says, we have not seen the evidence. Where is the evidence? Where are the numbers? Deputy Quinlivan has his anecdotal stories from individual employees; I have my anecdotal stories from vast numbers of employers. That is no way to make legislation. Going back to the drawing board, is legislation required to deal with this?