Mr. Owen Reidy:

I have a very clear one. Deputy O'Reilly asked two questions. She asked whether it is appropriate for companies in receipt of public procurement and taxpayers' moneys to avoid the institutions of the State. No, it is not appropriate. I hope that, after we transpose the directive, it will be much more than not appropriate. I hope it will be illegal. I hope that if they choose to do it, they will be excluded from taxpayers' money and seeking public procurement for a period until they reflect on it.

The second issue is that what we are speaking about is that the State is obliged under the directive to promote collective bargaining. Public procurement is referenced in Article 9. We are saying the State should take it a step further and say we should use public procurement as one of the many tools we have to support collective bargaining. Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor in a coalition government is doing so in Germany this year, I believe. We do not suggest for one minute that a company that does not engage with a union should be excluded from public procurement. We are turning it around. We are saying that a company has to be able to demonstrate it has not prevented its workers from accessing collective bargaining through a union should they wish to do so. If it is able to show this then, as I said to the other Deputies, there are many employers in the State who treat their workers well where there is not a union and that is fine.

This is about companies having a positive discrimination whereby they can say they have a right to bid for public procurement because they can show they deal with a union or they have never prevented their staff when they have wished to access collective bargaining through a trade union. This is the issue. Can the State do this? Of course it can. I hope it does so and I hope it does many other things to promote collective bargaining. There has to be a carrot but we have not had enough stick, quite frankly. The carrot only goes so far. It is voluntary for one party and not for the other.