Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I have much sympathy for the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, in tackling this legislation. Much of what is contained in the Bill is fair and reflective of how the economy, and small businesses in particular, stands. It contains the wish across the entire House to provide the best possible protection for employees governed by JLCs. I acknowledge the departmental officials in the Chamber who have done their walk to Calvary on this legislation and have probably been nailed to a few crosses along the way. While the Bill may not be perfect, I hope it, combined with reforms to industrial relations institutions such as the Labour Court and the Employment Appeals Tribunal, will provide a far more efficient, robust yet flexible system. The current system is not flexible or responsive in the context of our current economic position and the erosion of workers' rights. Over the past number of weeks, companies have gone out of business overnight and left their workers without basic statutory entitlements, something that rarely happened in the past. This generally involved multinational companies with huge legal advice behind them. We must have a system that is robust and can stand up to that. A little tweaking of the legislation would be welcome.

I welcome the fact that an inability to pay mechanism has finally been devised. Companies have been forced to make difficult decisions over the past number of years and they have had no flexibility under REAs and JLCs. In a number of companies, the workforce agreed with the management without having guns held to their heads about the need for a derogation but management was in a position to implement it. Some of them closed or redundancies were made because every company was tied into an REA. Jobs were lost and Members protested about that. I will bring them to businesses where jobs were lost because of the lack of a derogation mechanism and show them the tumbleweed. I tried to introduce it as Minister of State but I was stymied by those who say they were acting in the interest of job creation. The introduction of the inability to pay provision is being diluted by the manner in which the Minister has reduced the redundancy rebate. That will come back to haunt the Government because many companies will be forced to close rather than lay people off because of the massive overnight reduction in the rebate. The strength of the provision will be diminished by that.

Last week, I contributed to the debate on the temporary agency directive. I have not made it a secret since I entered the House that I tend to adopt a pro-business view. We look to business people to create jobs. Governments do not create jobs; they create the conditions for jobs. When one stands up on behalf of business, all sorts of accusations are thrown. I read some of the contributions following my own last week by Members, some of whom have not even worked a day in their life, never mind created a job, who had a go because I stand up for business. I make no apology for that because not every business in the State behaves like La Senza, GAMA or Vita Cortex. Approximately 95% of business people wake up on Monday morning wondering how the hell they will open the door that day and how will they pay the wages or the energy bills. We need to get a debate going to stand up for them in order that in the House we understand the pressure they are under when they wake up Monday morning wondering how they will pay the bills. We have all met business people who are not taking a salary from their business and who are living off savings or other salaries coming into their house because they are paying the bills in an attempt to keep their businesses open while hoping for the turnaround. When legislation is framed that impacts on them, we need to think more about the pressures they are under and I, therefore, welcome some of the flexibilities in this Bill.

The workload of the Labour Court, the Employment Appeals Tribunal and other institutions will increase under the legislation. I acknowledge that the Minister is bringing forward a range of reforms but current tribunal waiting times are unacceptable. It is 74 weeks in Dublin, up from 58 weeks in 2010, and 76 outside Dublin. If cases are urgent and need to be heard quickly, a shorter turnaround than 18 months is needed and the system must be robust in order that rogue employers who let the business community down know they can be tackled urgently.

I refer to NERA. The previous Dáil taught me a lesson about the making of legislation in the House. When the authority came under my watch, there were queues of Members from every side of the House having a go with NERA being described as the biggest anti-Christ in the State. I checked with many of them who had contributed to the debate when the legislation was going through and the majority supported the authority's creation and they gave it all its powers. When NERA began to use the powers it had been given by the House, Members started kicking up. It was an eye-opener. However, the authority needs to engage in an information campaign about the legislation. When it is passed, NERA needs to hit the road and not assume that every employer will know what are their obligations. Instead of carrying out inspections, it needs to conduct information campaigns and fill employers in on their obligations similar to the Revenue Commissioners. I accept we picked on the Revenue last week but it is a good organisation in the context of providing information on people's rights and obligations.

I agree with Deputy Connaughton that we should take this opportunity for a debate on Sunday working. Let us take it out of the industrial relations-business context. There should be a day in the week when workers get a break from the rat race but for many of them, it cannot be Sunday. Some people have to work in order that others can have a break and Sunday is, therefore, not a day of rest for many anymore. It might be Tuesday or Wednesday and a clash will result if old style ways of doing things are imposed on modern ways of living. Provision should be made for people to take days off but there should not be an insistence on using only one day. This issue should also be considered in the context of people who work six days a week.

The legislation should have been considered in tandem with the temporary agency directive and the reform of various institutions that is coming down the track. At the end of this process, we need a system that is robust and can stand up to legal challenge with the Oireachtas being able to say it did its job properly by introducing strong legislation. We need a flexible system because business and employment patterns are changing. What worked in the 1930s and 1940s does not work anymore and what worked in 2011 probably will not work next year, given the pace of change. Employment cannot always be behind the curve. There is potential in the reform of the JLCs to address this. Agreements must be monitored and changed to reflect different circumstances. I welcome the introduction of time limits to impose change. What happened previously was ridiculous. JLCs would begin a discussion that would go on for years and, in the meantime, workers would lose their jobs. That is a legacy of the old system.

There is a great deal of concern about reducing the number of JLCs. I am not convinced of the merits of retaining a set number of committees. It would be much better to debate the sectors in which such committees should be established. JLCs are needed in the services, retail and a range of other sectors but rather than agreeing a precise number, the sectors in which they are needed should be examined such as those in which labour is transient and in which there is the greatest erosion of labour law. JLCs should be focused on those sectors rather than on ensuring a particular number of committees is set up. Laundries were relevant in the 1940s but they are not today, yet there is still a JLC in place for them.

I have a great deal of sympathy for the Minister. I tried to pursue this agenda previously. I am lucky that I do not have a choir of Labour Party backbenchers in the House having a go at me with their choirmasters in SIPTU leading the charge. We have something we can work on but, by the end of this year, this legislation needs to be enacted as well as the legislation on the reform of various institutions and the temporary agency directive. The Government has taken a range of decisions since November that are anti-business, although that was probably not intentional, such as the VAT increase, the reduction in the redundancy rebate and the reduction in the capital programme. As well as introducing pro-business legislation, the Government needs to get back to implementing pro-business policies. Then maybe we can all start achieving our shared aim of job creation.

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