Ms Cathy Maguire:

Yes. The definition of worker comes from the Industrial Relations Act 1990 which deals with industrial relations and not employment rights, which is interesting. I presume the Deputy is trying to bring in people who may not be employees. There are other mechanisms for doing that, for example, the Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Equality Act 2105 extends to persons who are personally engaged to perform any work or service. The anomaly brought into this Bill by referring to the Industrial Relations Act 1990 is that those employed by or under the State are excluded and teachers are excluded. I think they are excluded from the 1990 Act because they have alternative mechanisms for collective bargaining. That is a completely different reason for excluding them than there might be for excluding them from this Act. That needs to be considered.

The Bill imports the definition of employer from the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 but it is completely inappropriate to juxtapose that with the definition of worker because the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 defines employer in terms of employee, which is itself defined by the 1994 Act but not by the Bill. It is necessary either to bring in two corresponding definitions or put in fresh definitions.