Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)

I did not claim that the Bill I introduced was a panacea which would cure every problem, no more than the Bill before us today can do so. I introduced it because I wanted to save more than 200,000 workers on the bottom of the pay scale from months of uncertainty. The Government decided that these workers should be left to suffer until such time as its own legislation was ready. The Chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Social Protection and Education, Deputy Damien English, stated before the summer recess that the Government legislation would be introduced in the first week of this session. The Government's attitude was that the Bill I introduced was inadequate, left too many gaps and that a comprehensive review of the system was required. I accept all of that. However, the workers in this situation needed reassurance and would have received it if the Government, having accepted my Bill on Second Stage, had allowed it to proceed to committee. I expect it will perform a similar trick today by supporting Deputy Tóibín's Bill on Second Stage before preventing it from proceeding any further.

The JLC system was introduced by Seán Lemass via the Industrial Relations Act 1946 to protect people who did not have access to the normal method of collective bargaining, that is, trade union representation. We are talking today about migrant workers and part-time workers, including women working for menial wages as waitresses, hotel cleaners and so on who are forced to work in these jobs because their husbands have lost their jobs. I mean no disrespect in saying they are often people whose educational attainments are low. If anybody doubts the veracity of that, I point to the recent CSO figures on income levels which show that while the average income is €670 per week - with the average in the private sector being €602 per week - in the areas which incorporate 90% of JLC workers the average is the princely sum of €288 per week. These are the people whose protection was removed by the recent High Court case and in respect of whom the Government has delayed thus far in replacing that protection.

The Government, particularly Fine Gael, has argued consistently that there is legislation in place on the minimum wage, working hours, conditions of pay and so on which offers adequate protection. It was my party in government which introduced most of that legislation. However, it does not fill the gap caused by the dismantling of the JLC system. There is an enormous amount covered by JLCs which is not dealt with in the legislation. More importantly, under the protection granted by Government legislation, these vulnerable people - immigrant workers, part-time workers and so on - are expected to vindicate their own rights, to take a case themselves if their rights are infringed. They do not have the same protection from the State as they have through the National Employment Rights Authority under the JLC system.

I warned in July that there would be a race to the bottom if the Government did not send a clear signal, by letting the Fianna Fáil Bill proceed to Committee Stage, that the JLC system would not be dismantled or substantially eroded. The vast majority of employers have adopted a wait-and-see attitude, but there is substantial anecdotal evidence that some employers have approached workers who enjoy the protection of the JLC system, both in terms of pay and conditions, and told them bluntly that this protection and those conditions are no longer affordable. These workers have been told they can either accept that or take their chances among the 500,000 unemployed. The vast majority of employers have behaved in a responsible manner and taken no action as yet, but some unscrupulous employers are already using the lacuna in the law to lessen the protection afforded to workers at the very bottom of the pile in terms of wage. That is the reality.

The undertaking from the Minister and from various backbenchers last July was that legislation would be ready immediately upon the resumption of the Dáil. Yet there is no sign of it almost one month after the start of the session. I asked the Taoiseach about it last week on the Order of Business but he could not tell me when the Bill will be introduced. The continuing delay is adding to the anxiety of workers and is emboldening unscrupulous employers who seek to operate as though it is a certainty the JLC system will be completely dismantled.

The Duffy Walsh report pointed out that measures to protect wage rates for the lower paid do not impede employment creation and that removing them will not lead to a jobs bonanza. The report refers to various economic studies to justify that conclusion. Reducing pay and removing protection from people whose average pay rate is €288 per week will not return us to the days of the Celtic tiger.

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