Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The numbers are increasing and are going to do so every year. There are 17,000 new contributory pensioners every year. Some of those will be affected by their longevity, working out the averaging of their total contributions over those years. The initial figure of 36,000 was probably at the end of last year. This year, we will probably have an extra 6,000 and another 5,000 or 6,000 next year. Until we fix this, more women and men who are averaging their total contributions over a 40 or 35-year period will be at a disadvantage in the context of the changes made in 2012. I repeat what I said yesterday - the report will be ready to go to Cabinet by next Tuesday. The officials have done Trojan work on it in the past couple of weeks. It is difficult to get the details. I cannot overemphasise that enough. Staff are dealing with paper records and it is a manual job. That report will give us solutions in respect of this issue in order that we will not be here next year discussing the fact that another 7,500 people have been disadvantaged. We will fix the situation in the coming weeks or months. I gave that guarantee yesterday. In case the Deputy thinks there is some conspiracy on the part of the Department to hold back in respect of this matter, people qualify for contributory and non-contributory pensions every day. The number of people getting less than they expected to get in the form of a pension on the basis of their contributions being averaged over a long period will continue to grow until we fix the situation. We will fix it.

The Deputy's second question was about the Opposition Bill. Much as I am delighted to have been elevated to Cabinet in recent months, I know my place and I have neither the ability nor the authority to issue money messages. I do have a view, as I have said many times, that nobody in this House has a monopoly on wisdom. Opposition legislation can be as good and as robust as, and perhaps sometimes better than, that produced by Government. I have never been of the view that just because a Bill comes from the Opposition we should vote it down for the sake of it. I have always thought that we should have longer debates than we have had in the past 18 months.

There is a difficulty with Opposition legislation between Second Stage and Committee Stage. There are approximately 230 Bills in that position. Due to the fact that I was a member of the Business Committee, I am aware that the aim of the Dunning report, the process relating to which was conducted over seven months, to try to overcome that impasse in order that we might come to some arrangement. The Government is not stopping money messages just for the craic. The legislation has to be robust and must go through pre-legislative scrutiny or post-pre-legislative scrutiny, depending on where it sits. We have to find a mechanism for getting some of that legislation through the House. The Business Committee has not been able to agree on the recommendations contained in the Dunning report. Until it does, we are not in a position to move any further than we have offered, which is significant for a Government, to advancing those Bills. Much as I understand the Deputy's frustration, I suggest that he direct it towards the Business Committee and encourage it to accept the recommendations of the Dunning report. If he does not accept those recommendations, he could come up with something better in order that we might move that legislation forward and not just think that is the lack of a money message that is stopping the legislation from proceeding. The latter is not the case.

The Deputy raises his eyebrows because I say not all zero-hour contracts will be banned but that is not a sinister view. We are going to ban zero-hour contracts so that people cannot be brought in willy-nilly on a two or three-hour basis. In some very strict and genuine cases, there is a need to have zero-hour contracts available. I refer, for example, to substitute school teachers who may or may not be on a panel. There may be an emergency where a school has no teacher, where a substitute teacher on a panel may not be available and where the school will have to look outside that panel. A school is not going to organise a five hour contract for somebody on a weekly basis where there are not five hours in that school but the teacher is needed this week because another is off sick or for whatever reason. It has to be a genuine emergency. We are not leaving a loophole here for people to take the mick and to use it. We are adamant, as I know the Deputy, those in Fianna Fáil and all the other Deputies in the House are, that we are going to reduce an employer's ability to use people on a casualised basis. There are genuine emergencies where they need that wriggle room. That will be clear in the legislation. The Deputy will be able to propose changes to it if he wishes but absolutely only in genuine cases where emergency cover is needed will we tolerate any offering of zero-hour contracts.

I will come back to the Labour Court issue later.

Deputy Halligan is in Thailand. I know from my experience and that of some of my colleagues that it is difficult to make a fulsome response from so far away. What I heard yesterday was a fulsome apology and acknowledgment that what he said was inappropriate and wrong. If the Deputy considered the statement he made in the course of the interview, he probably acknowledged it at the time. I think his words were "I probably shouldn't ask you this but ...". That probably tells another story. I have had the privilege of knowing Deputy Halligan not just since he has been in government with me but also over the past five or six years that I have been in the House. In these Houses, one probably does not have reason to have conversations with certain people. Deputy Halligan is an incredibly friendly person. I know he has championed women's rights far more loudly, with respect, than some of the women in these Houses in the past seven years. When I hear that he genuinely apologises for the hurt and distress he caused and his explanation for what he said, I take it as being 100% bona fide.

I accept his apology. I will not sit here and pretend that what he did was correct because it was not. I also know that he knows he should not have said what he said and he has apologised fully for it. I also categorically put it on the record that he has championed women's rights in this House over the past seven years, which is as long as I have been here, much louder than some other people in this House.

In respect of the Labour Court, it is not the Supreme Court. However, the Labour Court and the Workplace Relations Commission are statutory bodies which have statutory powers. The reason people go to them is that they want to find co-operative solutions to the difficulties they have. That is why it works as effectively as it does. It also seeks and has the power to uphold judgments that arise from other courts. Mr. Sheridan will correct me if I am wrong. The reason it is so successful is that people co-operatively and collaboratively come to the table and find a solution to the issues they have. The WRC is probably more effective because it is used much more often. While the Deputy does not believe the Labour Court is a proper court, it certainly is a statutory body with statutory powers. It works very effectively and I hope it will work as effectively today as it has done with all the other dispute resolutions that have been put before it in the past.