Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent)

I welcome the opportunity to say a few words on the Bill. As Deputies have noted, its purpose is to transpose an EU directive into Irish law and, as usual, we are late in doing so. Having read the text of the legislation and followed its passage through the Seanad, it is clear the Government has opted to do the bare minimum in fulfilling its obligation to transpose the directive. It is a pity it did not take the opportunity to expand the scope of the legislation to address various other areas which are currently creating serious difficulties for workers here and across the European Union.

The services directive forms the backdrop to the legislation and the current industrial relations climate in Ireland and elsewhere in the European Union. As Deputies are aware, the directive was first proposed and later withdrawn for review. The motivation behind it is to allow wages and conditions to be undermined in the member states. If implemented in its current form, the directive would, for instance, allow employers established in eastern European member states to operate in Ireland on the basis of wages and conditions pertaining in their country of origin. EU Commissioners, including the former Minister for Finance, Mr. McCreevy, have expressed support for the directive. In expressing his outright support for it recently, Mr. McCreevy demonstrated he is opposed to basic and fundamental conditions of employment for workers in EU member states. He publicly supported such a situation in Sweden, where a Latvian company wanted to employ people on the basis of Latvian pay and conditions. When he was taken to task on that, he spoke in the European Parliament to say that he certainly did not apologise and that he supported that view. Unfortunately, we see that in this country too. The situation with Irish Ferries has brought this to a head. IBEC supports Irish Ferries in its attempt to sack 543 Irish workers and employ foreign nationals at ridiculous rates. In recent days, it has been supported by the Irish Exporters' Association. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment also supported that recently when it allowed exactly the same situation to arise on the French route with the MV Normandy. It subsidised redundancies on that route to the tune of €5 million.

This situation goes to the very heart of Irish society. It simply must be stopped, since if it is not, it will destroy the wages and conditions that have been fought for and won over many years here. It may well also cause this country to become a hotbed of racism because of such action by Irish Ferries and the fact that non-national workers are employed here in most cases on the minimum wage but not under the same conditions of employment as Irish workers. Effectively, non-national workers are being used and abused by employers, and that will lead to the perception that they are taking the jobs of Irish workers. We do not want that to arise in future. If allowed to develop, it would certainly allow scope for the worst type of racism to rear its ugly head.

In that regard, the threshold of 50 employees for enterprises and companies to come within the ambit of this Bill is far too high. I do not see why someone working in a company with fewer than 50 employees is not entitled to the same information and so on as someone employed by a larger company. The vast majority of non-national employees and workers from other European Union countries work in enterprises with less than 50 staff. The terms of this Bill, as far as I can see, will not apply to them at all. The opportunity should have been taken to ensure through the Bill a legal right to trade union recognition. There is no doubt that it is very important, and even more so nowadays in the context of the services directive and the way that some companies, such as Irish Ferries, want to undermine the trade union movement and Irish workers, effectively destroying the core values that we have built up.

The opportunity presented by this legislation should have been taken to deal with flags of convenience. I know the Taoiseach has told us that he does not believe that anything can legally be done on the issue, but that is not the case, since, if the political will were there, a way would be found to ensure that they were outlawed. I note the Bill introduced by the Labour Party this week in that regard. If the political will were there, the Government, together with Irish representatives at EU level, could make such flags of convenience illegal. That which is proposed at Irish Ferries would then be completely unlawful. There is no doubt that what we have seen there will destroy the social and economic conditions and values of Irish workers and the Irish people if allowed to continue.

It has also been suggested that there is a background to this legislation of American multinationals' preference for not dealing with organised labour. There is no doubt that many such companies will deal only with the individual worker and not with organised trade unions or staff associations. However, there are American multinationals here that have no difficulty dealing with trade unions. I commend Merck, Sharpe and Dohme (Ireland) Limited, which has had a plant at Ballydine near Carrick-on-Suir in my constituency for almost 30 years and always dealt with the trades unions. There is an excellent relationship between management, unions and workforce on that site.

There is no reason to believe that, with the requisite will, management of such multinationals could not co-operate, recognise and talk to organised labour by way of the Irish trade union movement. That is one of the reasons I believe the legal right to trade union recognition should be embodied in this Bill. I do not believe, for instance, that American multinational companies who, to date, have refused to deal with organised labour or trade unions, will co-operate with this Bill either, unless they are forced to do so. There should be an automatic right for workers to access the information dealt with in this Bill, and that process should be ongoing. It would be better if it were dealt with through the organised trade union movement here in the shape of ICTU and its affiliates.

While I welcome the legislation as far as it goes, there are other areas that should be dealt with as I have outlined, and it is a pity that an opportunity to do so has been lost. I hope some of those issues might be addressed on Committee Stage.

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