Mr. Owen Reidy:

I thank Deputy Smith for his questions. I spent six years in our Belfast office as assistant general secretary to the ICTU. The level of engagement across Stormont was very good in some areas and, unfortunately, very bad in some areas. Part of the problem with the way the Executive is structured is that the nine Departments all operate in silos. It is an involuntary mandatory coalition. If there is a progressive minister, as we had with Stephen Farry, now an MP, when he was Minister for Employment and Learning and workers' rights were in his bailiwick, it is possible to get things done. If there is somebody who is not interested and will only deal with the other side of the labour market, that is, the business groups, no progress can be made. That has been a real problem.

If and when the assembly comes back, and it is in everybody's interest that it comes back, Northern Ireland clearly needs a reforming, progressive minister for the economy who will take workers' rights seriously and will deal with unions and employers evenly. It took a global pandemic for the minister for the economy to say it might be a good idea to talk to unions and employers. There is no forum for social dialogue in Northern Ireland. We have limited forums in this State that are not as good as they should be but at least we have the Labour Employer Economic Forum, LEEF, and other arrangements. Unfortunately, there is a level of dysfunction that has permeated for the past eight to ten years. When I talk to our colleagues in Wales TUC and the Scottish Trades Union Congress, they are envious that employment rights are devolved to Northern Ireland.

They would love that to be the case because they would love to do things with the Welsh Labour Party Government and the Scottish National Party, SNP, and Green Government in Scotland because those are centre-left governments that will engage. They would not have to be reliant on the Tory Government in Westminster, as they have been for the last 13 years. Nothing was stopping the Assembly from doing something on this, but it has not been done.

One of the things we are looking for and preparing is a progressive employment Bill that will mirror the best elements of some of the things we are doing in this jurisdiction. We have not brought them to fruition yet in this jurisdiction, and I hope the Government that Deputy Brendan Smith and the Cathaoirleach are a part of will take this directive seriously and not implement it in a light-touch way because this is a win-win scenario for everyone. There are roadblocks but they can be overcome. I do not think the trade union movement has been respected in the way it should be north of the Border by a number of Ministers for the Economy in recent times. There is a real imbalance in this regard. One of the Ministers for the Economy was meeting representatives of employer bodies every week. I think I met her when she was an MEP. That is dysfunctional. We probably have the least amount of social dialogue in Northern Ireland. It is comparable with Hungary and Poland, which are places we would not want to be comparing ourselves to. That includes England as well.