Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 15, to delete lines 4 and 5 and substitute the following:“(a)a person nominated by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and”.

We welcome the Minister accepting the Oireachtas committee's recommendation in its pre-legislative scrutiny report to have employee and employer representatives on the board. That was recommendation 8. The absence of a workers' representative on the board in the draft heads of the Bill had been raised by ICTU in its evidence to the committee as something that needed amending. The Labour Party amendments seek only to ensure that the provision for the appointment by the Minister of a board member who has knowledge of or experience in matters relating to the interests of employees is in line with the provisions in existing legislation. There is a recent example of that in the Regulation of Providers of Building Works and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2022, whereby of the persons appointed to be board members - I quote from the Act – "1 shall be nominated by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions,". That is in section 22.

ICTU, as the representative body of trade unions and workers, must be asked to nominate its representative to the board of the authority and while this may be the Minister's intention, it needs to be written into the legislation to protect against future governments which may have other less honourable intentions.