Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

A few of the points I wanted to make have been covered. I thank Professor Doherty for coming before the committee. I refer to points 9 and 10 of his submission. In terms of the Competition (Amendment) Act 2017, Professor Doherty said that this legislation represents an innovative attempt to extend collective bargaining rights to vulnerable workers. Can he give us any examples of unions doing that and the workers who were covered by it?

I do not believe there is any reference to it here but I refer to the scope section, the social welfare appeals office, SWAO, the High Court and the Labour Court. Many cases are upheld by the scope section as regards a worker being an employee. They then go to the SWAO and are not upheld and then to the High Court. It is a very long process. That leads on to the point about the public procurement process. One particular company, Giant Capital, 40% of whose clients are in the public sector, refused to implement a Labour Court recommendation relating to redundancy. Two weeks ago, Irish Archaeological Consultancy refused to attend the Labour Relations Commission, LRC, in respect of workers. What can we do in public procurement processes to insert in the contract that companies have to recognise the State industrial relations machinery? If they do not, will penalties apply? Would it be the case that they would not get a public contract in the future? There is no point in having the State machinery if under public procurement, companies are not obliged to even recognise it when it is where workers can go to get vindication of their employee states.