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

You can see that there are very diverse opinions in the committee. In a full employment economy, the reality is that we do have huge pressure on finding a living wage for people who are trying to survive in an expensive world but there is also huge pressure on low-margin businesses with high employment content trying to survive in that equally difficult world. We are trying to grapple with that. We have been presented with two visions - IBEC offering a vision of what ICTU describes as the State being a bystander content with the machinery for resolution, which has been very well developed, and no need for significant legislation, while ICTU says we need a change of culture and more enforceable legal provisions, penalties, designated union representatives, redundancy provisions and so on. Could Ms McElwee tell me what would be so wrong with ICTU's vision? What would be the practical impacts of it? Does she see merits in any of the elements of what is being proposed by ICTU? We have successfully developed sectors that have not had recognised trade unions for collective bargaining. Does Mr. Reidy see any downsides in moving from what has been very much a voluntary model to ICTU's vision of a statutory model? These are companies that have come in with a very different view of how to run things, particularly in very fast-moving sectors. Does Mr. Reidy see any merit in curtailing the extent to which we go down the legal road with penalties and enforceability? It is a very different culture. I would like to hear from both sides whether we can forge some common ground.