Mr. Owen Reidy:

It is a challenge to set it out definitively as, in advance of discussions on the transposition, we are working through what it would look like. Obviously, GDPR is an issue in the European Union. Employers cannot just give out employees' details. There are issues in that regard. When it was in government, the New Zealand Labour Party had a model that involved fair play agreements. If the Labour Party gets into government in the UK after the next election, it will do something similar. We are considering things like that. It is about giving workers physical and digital access to unions. A relatively short Bill on the protection of employees' trade union membership and associated provisions could address the issue.

There would have to be a significant proportion of an agreed threshold of members in a given employment to trigger this type of thing, but we think a designated representative should have the facilities to discharge his or her job. What does that include? It includes access to communicate digitally with his or her colleagues about trade union work, as well as things like physical and digital noticeboards, reasonable time off for training and facilities for trade union representatives.

There is an historical issue relating to property rights. The presence of trade union representatives on employers' property and that kind of thing would have to be worked through. If we are to square this circle on increasing collective bargaining coverage by increasing collective bargaining, however, we need to know what workers and those who wish to join want and think. We need to address access. It is the one issue on which we will need help from employers. They will have practical views regarding what will or will not work. Under the New Zealand legislation, for example, workers have three hours paid time to engage with a trade union, whether that is in the place of employment, the local town hall or whatever. I am not saying that is the model to follow, but it is an example of what has been provided in a western First World country. We are working it through. I appreciate it is a particularly challenging and thorny issue for employers and employer representatives. We have to get it right, however. We need rights for workers who are members of trade unions engaging in trade union activity. We need specific rights for trade union representatives to discharge their duties.

However, we need to square the circle in respect of how to address the issue of access. How can we have meaningful and informed negotiations with access to appropriate information on an equal footing, as per the directive, if we do not know what the workers want? I refer to workers, in reality, being prevented from exercising their right to collective bargaining. I am not referring to the right to join a trade union. There is a constitutional right in that regard and it is grand. The veto private sector employers can exercise renders this ineffective. We need to remove that veto. That would not turn the voluntarist model on its head. Rather, it would adjust and modernise it. Crucially, it would vindicate our obligations under the directive. The State has to be a promoter of collective bargaining. Can anyone really suggest the State is fulfilling that role? Through the years, there have been Ministers and parties that have been interested in collective bargaining, not just Ministers from parties of the centre left, but also from other parties, including Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, or from none. Has the State actually been an active promoter of collective bargaining? No, it has not. Is there any legislation currently in place that requires it to be such an active promoter? No, there is not. There are several issues to be addressed.

As regards the access issue, I do not have a definitive suite of measures. It is an issue on which I hope IBEC will work with us. We need to hear its concerns and issues. It is incumbent on us to come up with solutions to overcome that. We need to do it. Avoiding it is not an option. It will not be fixed and we will not vindicate the directive properly if we avoid, obfuscate or ignore.