Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein)
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I thank all the speakers for their presentations. I want to put this in context and get to the nub of the issue. After those infringement proceedings began last May, I tabled a Commencement matter in the Seanad. The Minister of State in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment who responded blankly told me there was no problem and nothing to see here.

That was after the infringement proceedings began. Do the witnesses have any views as to why that would be the case? It strikes me that there is a real reluctance on the part of the Department to deal with a relatively simple issue. What is the fix? There seems to be a large degree of commonality among the three witnesses on having a simple fix along the lines suggested by Dr. Kevin Duffy, the former chairperson of the Labour Court. That fix is to simply extend the remit of the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court in relation to these issues. This is clearly not a priority for the Department. Not only that but the Department is going out of its way not to deal with it, in my opinion. We had a spokesperson from the Department in a few months ago and all she would say was that officials were talking to the Commission. I want to get to the heart of this reluctance and the fix for it.