Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

-----and brought down wages across every sector. It is not appropriate for him to come in and lecture us on the previous Government's approach. It cut the minimum wage and also knew in 2008 about the frailty of the legislation. In 2009 it introduced legislation which languished right up to the time of the general election with nothing being done to reinforce or strengthen the position of vulnerable workers in these sectors. It is very hard, therefore, to listen to the Deputy lecture the Government on the importance of protecting vulnerable workers. When he came to deal with the detail of the legislation, he opposed the Duffy Walsh report. He does not want to see any of the changes flagged in the report as being necessary. He does not want to see a "health check", as he described it, of the existing JLCs when he knows that the courts have stated we have to restart the process and have the JLCs reconstituted in a way that will be robust in terms of constitutional scrutiny. He knows this as a lawyer, yet he comes in here and tries to goad others into saying, "Watch out for this or that." The reality is that to make the legislation robust, we will have to address many of the issues raised. We will also have to respond to the very important issues set out in the Duffy-Walsh report. That is what we are about.

I have received sanction from the Government on an approach which will establish a robust JLC system. It will significantly simplify it, as there will be a reduction in the number of JLCs from 13 to 6. Principles will be set out. The committees will have to look at what is affecting sectors, whether it is a lack of competitiveness, employment conditions or other factors.

In order to create criminal sanctions, we have to take proper principles into account when JLCs set rates and conditions. That is what the courts have told us. However, Deputy O'Dea pretends that we can ignore the court findings and continue to pursue legislation in the way he thinks we ought to do so, but he is only seeking to fool the House.

I look forward to introducing the legislation. Not only will we be reducing the number of JLCs, but we will also be simplifying the number of rates being policed. There are around 300 rates open to scrutiny. We will be dealing with issues in a different way. We will not have an unlevel playing pitch between shops in the grocery sector when it comes to the way they deal with the issue of Sunday premium payments and so on.

We will address the issue of derogations because as the Duffy-Walsh report states, we need such a system. I do not think it was included in the old Fianna Fáil Bill and it is not in this Bill, but the Fianna Fáil led Government flagged that we needed a derogation system, which has been a feature of social partnership agreements for many years. Having a derogation system is consistent with having a statutory structure that is robust and fair. We will have to address the constitutional robustness of the system. Therefore, there will have to be in place clear principles and policies underpinning it. The procedures in place will have to be fair.

The Duffy-Walsh report is clear that registered employment agreements have not proved sufficiently able to respond to differing conditions. We all know what has happened in the construction sector. It has moved from the construction of 90,000 houses per annum to the likely number to be completed this year - 10,000. Almost 90% of the housing element has been wiped out and the position is not that different in other parts of the sector. To pretend that agreements can respond to these issues is not right because it has been proved the system has been unable to respond. The Duffy-Walsh report proposal, to be embodied in the legislation, concerns a procedure through which such issues can reopened. The representative nature of the agreements must be clear in order that those who negotiate are sufficiently representative. That is only fair. Equally, if there is a need to change, there must be an ability to change. The Duffy-Walsh report sets out that it should be possible for the Labour Court to consider the justification for changes, even if it is in a series of iterations. If agreement cannot be found, the report states the Labour Court should make a decision on registered employment agreements. These are issues experts on all sides of the argument have examined and found weaknesses.

This is clearly a time when we must have a system of statutory wage setting that is robust in protecting workers but which is also sufficiently flexible and responsive to changing economic conditions. We cannot pretend that the impact of 350,000 job losses, many of them in sectors such as construction and retail, is of no consequence to the way we set wages in these sectors. It is of consequence. Those who are setting wages and taking responsibility for creating criminal sanctions on employers must take this into account. That is only fair and right and what the courts have told us. If we are dishing out criminal sanctions for failure, we have to respond to the realities and have principles to guide the way we deal with these realities. That is what we need to do and I believe we will have a system that is robust in protecting workers but which is also sufficiently flexible to ensure we will not turn our backs on employment opportunities in the continually changing environment of various sectors.

When this system was established in 1946, there was a different attitude to issues such as working on a Sunday. There was none of the body of legislation now in place to protect workers. Sunday working was not recognised in a legislative structure like it is today. We must realise that conditions in the economy are changing and these systems, like all others, have to be sufficiently flexible to respond to these, but they have to be sufficiently robust to protect workers at the same time. That is the balance the Government will strike in the legislation it will soon bring before the House.

See this speech in context