Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

I move amendment No. 10:

In page 5, between lines 17 and 18, to insert the following:

"2.—It is hereby declared that a self-employed individual may be a member of a trade union for the purposes of the Trade Union Acts 1871 to 1990 and if he or she is such a member, he or she shall not be an undertaking for the purposes of the Competition Act 2002.".

I also moved this amendment on Committee Stage to insert a new subsection (2). This deals with the extraordinary situation whereby the Competition Act, which is entirely domestic legislation and not an EU requirement, prohibits self-employed individuals from joining trade unions. I signalled to the Minister of State on Committee Stage that I regarded this as a very important amendment because the subsection to which it refers prohibits a number of organised people from being represented by a trade union. They include, for example, individual artists, actors and so on, who are organised and should have the right to have collective agreements with employers. I do not know if it was the dying sting of the outgoing chairman, but in a rather bizarre decision the Competition Authority determined this was anti-competitive. I know from the discussion we had on Committee Stage that the Minister is well disposed to dealing with this anomalous situation. The difficulty, however, is finding a suitable vehicle that does not allow individuals who are genuine sole practitioners, such as barristers, from availing of it and doing collective bargaining in their own right. They do so, however, because I noticed the Attorney General was quite capable of doing a collective agreement on fees for tribunals both with the Bar Council and the Incorporated Law Society. When it suits, apparently, it is not anti-competitive in those instances.

This is an important issue and I hope the Minister of State might be able to take this amendment on board at this stage. It is simply a statement of the Legislature's intent, as follows:

It is hereby declared that a self-employed individual may be a member of a trade union for the purposes of the Trade Union Acts 1871 to 1990 and if he or she is such a member, he or she shall not be an undertaking for the purposes of the Competition Act 2002.

As the Minister of State knows well, I have tried a couple of variations on this particular theme. When the Minister said this was an employees consultation Bill and not the best vehicle to deal with this issue, I sought to amend the Competition Act 2001 itself when the Competition (Amendment) Bill was going through the House. That amendment sought to ensure that a more sane construction would be put on that Act by the Competition Authority. Unfortunately, I did not succeed in that regard. The senior Minister in the Department was dealing with that legislation and it fell foul of the Long Title of the Bill because he said it was confined entirely to the provisions of the Competition Act that were required by the abolition of the groceries order.

Having come at it from a few directions, therefore, if I do not get satisfaction on this amendment I am minded to seek to publish my own legislation on it in Private Members' time. I hope, however, that we will not have to use Private Members' time on this matter. If the Government and Opposition are of a common view it will not be beyond the wit of the Minister, his Department and the parliamentary draftsman to come up with an acceptable form of words to capture what is intended, without creating loopholes for others. I have already argued for this important issue on Committee Stage. Many people are flabbergasted that such a bizarre interpretation of the Competition Act could come about that would deprive them of the rights they have enjoyed up to now to be members of a trade union and have a union represent them in negotiations on working conditions and terms of employment, including remuneration.

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