Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

The Labour Party welcomes this Bill and will support it on Second Stage. We will probably table some amendments at the appropriate stage and the Minister of State has indicated he is likely to do the same. I therefore envisage that this Bill will have to go back to the Seanad before it is finally passed. However, we are anxious to see it enacted before the recess and commencement of the next general election campaign because it provides a measure of cover that is welcome.

We all know the genesis of the Bill is the debacle of the Irish Ferries dispute, which appalled many across the political spectrum. It showed the negative aspects of globalisation being brought home to our doorstep. The manner in which it was done did no credit to anyone involved. It brought out an unprecedented number of protestors, many of whom had come on to the streets for the first time. Many of them were in secure jobs and were in no way threatened in their employment by what had happened to the Irish Ferries workers. However, they saw, perhaps, the dismantlement of the European social model, through a loophole in this instance. It was an example of what could have been advanced by the Progressive Democrats and other political parties on the European stage to make "Europe more competitive", when three out of the world's five most competitive economies are Finland, Sweden and Denmark.. These countries probably have higher levels of social protection than this State and many others within the European Union.

Competition and competitiveness are not exclusively about wage rates. If that were the case Bangladesh would probably be the most competitive nation in the world. Let us get real about this debate and strip out those people who use the word "competitiveness" as a code for cheap or low wages, or low social protections. As we know, Irish Ferries applied to the Redundancy Fund for a sum awarded in the order of €4.5 million. The Minister of State will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe it was in that order of magnitude. On the legal advice of the Attorney General, presumably, this was paid. I regret that was the case and that the Government chose to take the legal advice of the Attorney General because I am sure the matter was not black and white.

Frequently legal advice may be presented in a manner that makes it acceptable for a particular course of action to be taken. I have been in similar situations where the legal advice could be read either way. On the assumption that the advice might have been capable of being read or interpreted either way, I would have much preferred if the Government had challenged the assertion of the company and let it allow the courts decide whether it was entitled to this compensation. That would have been a better course to take and would have given some judicial clarity to the matters for which we are now attempting to legislate. It would, at least have delayed payment to the company in question and would have sent a signal to others contemplating similar action to the effect that the restructuring of the labour force and the downgrading of its wages and conditions would not be automatically assisted by the industrial relations and employment protection process in Ireland.

However, I suspect that the presence of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and that of the Minister for Health and Children had some influence on the action taken by the Government in that regard. Perhaps the Minister of State will respond on that in terms of the nature and clarity of the legal advice because it is an important precedent for future possibilities in this area. Certainly, it has a historical relevance that we need to get to the bottom of.

I welcome, in particular, the removal of the age limit for redundancy and related payments because the nature of our workforce is such that we will have to systematically examine the entire age threshold issue in terms of entitlement. We will have to remove the upper limit of entitlement so that we may ensure that seniors, as the politically correct would call them — I shall soon be joining that age category — can be employed should they so choose. There was a time when we would have taken direction from the Catholic Church in this regard, which would mean that, like bishops, we could work up to the age of 72. Given the improved states of health most of us now enjoy because of good nutrition, a better environment and more exercise, people in their 60s have become "the new 50s", according to those marketing various products, including long vacations. For those for whom working is their sense of fulfilment and enjoyment and who are forced out of the workplace arbitrarily because they have reached a threshold, the system is wrong and should be changed. If this Bill is a step in that overall direction, I welcome it.

The complexities of the Bill, however, perturb me as much as they did my colleague in the Seanad, Senator McDowell. If this is what the legislative creative talents of the social partners comprise, they should stick to negotiating pay deals and leave the writing of legislation to a professional Civil Service, assisted by the elected representatives in the Oireachtas and the accumulated wisdom acquired in this House. It is a dog's dinner of a Bill in terms of drafting. If anything, it demonstrates the absolute necessity for the consolidation of employment and labour law. It is a quagmire beyond belief. The Minister of State, I know, is aware of this and has no doubt attended seminars and employment conferences where literally a small employer is now at the mercy of legal blackmail. It is a biscuit, a bar, half full, half empty in terms of the interpretation of conflicting legislation, which when overlaid with health and safety regulations or equality legislation literally is a haystack in which the possibilities for clear interpretation cannot be determined. A small firm simply cannot take on the task of being able to fight that situation and surrenders several thousands simply by closing at 5 p.m., not knowing whether it was ever legally exposed. I ask the Minister to acknowledge, perhaps, that consolidation is necessary. Some efforts have been made in the area and perhaps he will update the House in his response, either on Second Stage today or later, as to where we stand in this regard.

I have a final point, following on Deputy Hogan's contribution. The Labour Party Member for Waterford, Deputy O'Shea, received from Mr. Sean Kelly, the regional industrial organiser for the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union, representations regarding workers in the Castlemahon poultry plant. The main contract for the plant was shifted by the owners, the O'Kane Group, out of the jurisdiction to Ballymena, Northern Ireland, where operating and labour costs are much more competitive than in the Republic. A certain number of voluntary redundancies were obtained in the cost-cutting exercise. The workers in question, in addition to the two-week statutory payment, received a three-week addition to their payments by the O'Kane Group.

The attempt at reducing operating costs did not prove to be effective and the company subsequently went into liquidation. Under labour law, the liquidator was compelled to provide a statutory redundancy and no more to the remaining workforce because preferential treatment cannot be shown to an individual creditor.

There is great talk of creating an all-Ireland economy between now and 6 May. It is unacceptable if we follow the logic of this political euphoria that a plant can be moved from west Limerick to the North of Ireland and avail of an Irish Ferries mark II scenario. If the plant had moved to County Wicklow, it would not have happened. If a company goes into liquidation yet the owner has transferred the contract, there must be some degree of continuity. I suspect this falls between company and labour law.

As Deputy Hogan stated, if we want Irish workers to buy into a sustained support for an open trans-frontier single market in the EU which carries and shares the burdens of competition and opportunity, these types of sharp practices must be shut down. Any junior certificate student doing business organisation would recognise the sharp practice involved in the Castlemahon case. The O'Kane Group, which is still in existence, must be told that some form of additional payment should be made to the remaining workers, comparable to those who took the early redundancy 12 months before the company went into liquidation.

I accept this is not close to the Bill but it does arise because of the perceived inequities in the ways some workers are treated under existing labour law for redundancies and the difference between liquidation and voluntary redundancy. It is up to Members to respond to this. The social partners might be much better employed in turning their attention to these real-life conflicts rather than attempting to second-guess the Legislature with a draft Bill. In the past, the tradition was that politicians stayed out of industrial relations disputes and the trade unions and employers stayed out of the legislative process. I see a blurring of that traditional convention. If this Bill is the quality of the legislation that comes from it, we should see no more of it.

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