Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)

Amendments Nos. 4, 6 and 10 are in some ways a repeat of the discussion that we had at Committee Stage and relate to the issue of equality on enhanced conditions of work and payment beyond the basics. I appreciate that the Minister has added on a few areas above the basics, but the United Left Alliance believes that is not enough and if we are talking about equality, then we should be talking about equality in all employment issues.

At Committee Stage, some of our amendments were ruled out of order on the basis that they would involve a potential charge on the Exchequer. At the time, we asked the Minister to take cognisance of that fact and then not have a situation where we were forced to put down amendments that solely dealt with the private sector because of his unwillingness to deal with equality for agency workers who may potentially be employed by the State at a later date. Given that the Minister has not accommodated this, our amendments, in order to be valid and to go on the floor of the House, had to relate to non-Exchequer funded posts. It makes a mockery of the notion of equality if we are saying we, as Opposition Deputies, only have the right to put forward this provision in the case of the private sector because of the Minister's unwillingness to do so for any potential public sector employee.

The amendments speak for themselves. We are talking about holiday entitlements beyond the basic statutory minimum, holiday rostering, adoptive and parental leave, and other payments relating to access to pensions etc. Obviously, we are aware that some of these issues are not straightforward, but they are perfectly capable of being dealt with. When industries where staff have multi-employers have the ability to provide a pension scheme etc., agency workers should similarly have the right to access such schemes. Our amendments involve such payments, such pension provisions, work-related travel and expenses, and other allowances that would be available to comparator employees.

It gets to the heart of the issue. We are talking about protection of temporary agency workers and equality across the board and equality should mean equality in other social protection and payments above the norm.

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