Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is good to see the Tánaiste. He is very welcome. I want to raise the issue of European work councils. As the Tánaiste knows, because this has been an ongoing issue in his Department for several years, there have been many complaints over the failure of the Irish Government to correctly transpose the EU directive on European work councils. In essence, workers cannot access the industrial relations machinery of the State. That is not just my view but that of the European Commission. The Commission is very clear on this: "The Commission has identified a number of shortcomings in Irish legislation, which fails to guarantee the right of workers' representatives". What puzzles me is that, in contrast with the Minister's positive comments on collective bargaining, which I very much welcome, his Department appears to have set its face entirely against allowing members of European work councils to access the industrial relations machinery of the State. I genuinely cannot understand why that is the case, particularly because the European Commission has stated so clearly that there are problems with how the EU directive has been transposed and that we need to see amending legislation. Essentially, this is a matter of fairness.

Seven trade unions across Europe, representing 45 million workers, have written to the Minister to highlight their concerns over the failure of the Government to act on this issue. It is doing huge reputational damage to us across Europe. My colleagues in SIPTU have raised this on several occasions. Interestingly, the employer group Brussels European Employee Relations Group, BEERG, has also raised this and has been asking the Government to respond positively on it. Could the Minister give me his stance on whether the Government will engage with the European Commission and recognise that there is a fundamental problem with denying workers access to the industrial relations mechanisms of the State? Will he act on that?