Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

We do not need legislation for that. A number of them, including the catering one, have been amalgamated already. The issue which may require legislation is the fact that the courts may determine that employment regulation orders, EROs, are not legal because they have the sanction of the Labour Court and not ministerial sanction. I understand that one of the actions that may be dealt with in the Bill is that if this court case goes in a certain way, all EROs would fall as they would never have had legal weight. This Bill would require the Minister, rather than just the Labour Court, to sign off on all EROs. Legislation on those grounds would seem reasonable.

We also need to go further. Does the Tánaiste agree that there must be more far-reaching reform of the way joint labour committees, JLCs, and employment regulation orders work? With regard to the role of representative bodies, should there not be legislative definition of whether a body is representative of most employees? On many of these, they are not entirely representative, and there must be a clearer legal definition of the role of the chairperson. It is the case that with joint labour committees and EROs, the chairperson's casting vote determines the outcome. Unlike what we have with the electricians, it is not an agreement, and employment regulation orders are imposed by a committee. Often, they are not agreements at all and they are not claimed to be such.

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