Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

This approach recommends itself. There is great merit to it.

On employment rights, we can all be satisfied that the protections that Irish laws provides to workers will be afforded to British people working here. They will enjoy the same rights and entitlements and protections as any other posted worker under the principles of the posted worker directive. This is very positive and provides people with reassurance.

I ask the Minister to elaborate on the arrangements regarding frontier workers. I am assuming that arrangements regarding frontier workers relate to residents living on one side of the Border or the other and working across the Border and so on. There are several thousand people who are so affected. Many people I represent in north Louth have concerns in this regard. Crossing the Border a number of times a day is taken for granted by people living in Dundalk and working in Newry or living in Drogheda and working in Newry. The Minister is well aware of the issue. This Bill gives legislative expression to those protections that are already enjoyed. I ask the Minister to elaborate on the issues she has encountered in this area and the protections that will be reflected in the legislation.

I welcome the move by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection and the Minister to amend the Protection of Employees (Employers' Insolvency) Act 1984. Insolvencies occur all too frequently and given the activities of British business here and that of related companies such as parent companies and so on, this is very important. People will be reassured that those protections that are currently enjoyed around insolvency legislation will be applied to anybody who is made redundant in an insolvency situation, if employed by a UK parent company.