Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

The Minister will be familiar with the differences that emerge between agencies in respect of transport safety, particularly in respect of the appalling tragedy at Kentstown in the Minister's constituency when it fell to the Health and Safety Authority, HSA, to initiate some of the major steps that led eventually to accountability in that instance. Inserting a section relating to the upholding of the highest safety and professional standards at the very heart of the objectives of the DTA is a reasonable request.

There are continuing concerns among transport workers, particularly in respect of Regulation (EC) No. 1370/2007. The aspect of this directive which concentrates on competition and perhaps privatised competition within the transport sectors of the economy seems to be the hallmark of the framing of a large part of this legislation. If one looks at the directive, one can see that there are many elements in the preamble, particularly citation 17, which make it clear that the protection of standards and conditions among transport workers is also important given that they are among the most safety-critical workers in the economy. As I said before, at this very minute, the lives of possibly tens of thousands of our constituents are in the hands of skilful drivers and other staff. We should transpose citation 17 directly into the Bill.

Likewise, I make a final appeal to the Minister. I tried to set out in a new subsection (h) a provision whereby the Labour Court within two years of the establishment of the DTA would have a role in examining standards and conditions of workers across the sector given that we have set out a number of important requirements in respect of the strategic plan, implementation, the laying of plans here and so on. It seems reasonable that the industrial relations structure would also have a role within a specified time, for example, two years, if the organisation is up and running to see how it has carried out its remit in respect of the invigilation of transport operators.

Will the Employment Law Compliance Act, with which the Leas-Cathaoirleach is familiar, include transfers of staff from existing public service operators like CIE and Dublin Bus? Will the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) directive apply to staff and the protection of their pension rights and superannuation in this Bill as it exists? Otherwise, we need something like section 67.

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