Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)

I welcome what the Minister has said with regard to the forthcoming legislation in the autumn. We look forward to seeing what improvements he can manage to bring about in the system.

I would like to bring the Minister back to the situation under the industrial relations legislation. Is he aware that in 2010, the last year for which we have figures, no less than 543 cases were referred to the Labour Court under the industrial relations legislation? However, the Labour Court could issue a binding recommendation in only nine of them, less than 2% of the cases. To put it another way, in over 98% of cases that went to the Labour Court, if the employer chose to ignore the Labour Court recommendation, the employee was in no position to vindicate his or her rights. The figures for 2009 are somewhat similar with ten out of 606 cases. Will the Minister agree that this is very unfair, that it needs to be given careful and serious consideration and that the Connolly Shoes case, with which he would be familiar, is a classic example of what happens when employers fail to engage meaningfully with employment rights bodies?

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