Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is no problem with the Workplace Relations Commission getting involved with industrial relations issues in Bord na Móna. That is what it has done. It has advisory and mediation services. Where there are unresolved issues, parties can go to the Labour Court for adjudication, where people agree. We have a well-established industrial relations process. That will be triggered by the parties as issues evolve. The Deputy seems to be suggesting that the Workplace Relations Commission would become a very large tent for all sorts of governmental policy along the lines of his own Bill but that is not what the Workplace Relations Commission was designed to do. Industrial disputes are referred to it every day of the week and it deals with those. It has an expertise and will no doubt become involved in Bord na Móna on issues of difficulty as those issues are escalated through the industrial relations mechanism. They are not a body such as the commission the Deputy proposed in his Bill with the sort of powers he envisaged for it, which he is examining.