Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Section 22 sets out the director related provisions on any transferred company. With regard to employee representation on the boards of transferred companies, the section states that if a transferred company has more than 30 employees then an election is held and the winner is automatically appointed as a director. If a transferred company has fewer than 30 employees, then the local authority chief executive is obliged to appoint a director to represent employee interests to the board, and prior to doing so, the local authority chief executive must consult the relevant trade unions. This approach is identical to that found in section 39 in regard to ports of national significance and is, of course, identical to that which applies to date to all those port companies.

The amendments do not seem to align correctly with each other. The main thrust is to reduce the statutory threshold for employee-director relations from 30 to ten employees and then, if the amendment were not to be successful, to introduce through amendment No. 25 a requirement that rather than consider any trade union recommendation for employee representation on the board, a local authority chief executive would be compelled to accept any recommendation.

Amendment No. 31 relates to section 39, which deals with the ports of national significance. This amendment seeks again to reduce the threshold for employee elections from 30 to ten employees. I assume that this amendment is drafted, unaware of the fact that employee-director elections are already held at each of our ports of national significance, that is Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Foynes and Waterford. A reduction in the threshold from 30 to ten, would be inappropriate for a port company, and in particular for those ports of regional significance.