Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It seems from Mr. Carroll's comments that his main criticism of the Bill is that too much power and accountability are being devolved to bodies outside the Department or Government structures. I am interested in the unions' perspective on this. As skilled as Mr. Mulvey is, in the absence of some of the structures we are suggesting in our Bill, in the absence of the necessary resources and the ability to pull in expertise, set up mediation structures, designate companies to produce a plan, and review, monitor and scrutinise, and in the absence of all the legislative structures we have included after a great deal of deliberation to make sure we do this job well, there is a genuine fear that a single-person commission without legislative and other resources and without independence will not be able to do the job given the scale of that job in a variety of areas where we will have to apply this.

It is a matter of avoiding the mistakes made with Bord na Móna whereby we are not being proactive in addressing issues before they arise and are always sticking on Band-Aids. This Bill overcomes that failing. We have seen a specific example in how Bord na Móna workers have been treated. Mr. Carroll's concerns are over the devolution of too much power, independence, authority and capability and too many resources but the opposite is that the current system and commissioner, without any clear resources or structures within which to do the myriad jobs that are likely to arise, would not function as envisaged. Mr. Carroll criticises the measures as too much; I would criticise the Government's approach as being too little.