Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)

I acknowledge Sinn Féin's bringing the Bill to the House. I did not hear the contribution of Deputy Tóibín, but I read it and looked at the points he made. Deputy Ann Phelan made an important point, which is that no public representative has a monopoly of wisdom or understanding of the rights of workers and how they need to be protected. We all have family members who have been affected by unemployment and we deal with it, and the difficulties and stress that go with it, in our work as public representatives as people come into our constituency offices and clinics. I welcome any Bill, or any piece of thinking, that seeks to make redundancy fairer to employees, while recognising the difficulties and rights of employers.

This is a discussion we need to have. Like Deputy English, when I was reading Deputy Tóibín's speech, it appeared to me he was acknowledging some difficulties in the Bill but that he wanted the debate to begin and certain issues to be raised. The Government is working on a number of areas of reform, to which my colleagues have referred, and we hope they will deal with some of the points raised.

In my experience, two issues are frequently raised by constituents. The first is the lack of information in the period when it looks as if a company will be wound down and employees made redundant. Employees are often not clear on their rights and entitlements or about the roles of the various bodies, how they will be brought into the workplace and how they will engage. At a time when stress levels are already high, this uncertainty makes things more difficult for employees and makes planning for the future all the more difficult. The second issue relates to one touched on by Deputy Clare Daly. Employees are often not clear about the role of administrators in this period, how they are meant to engage with employees and how employees should deal with administrators and respond to points they make.

Another issue causes difficulty for people who are about to be made unemployed, although it is outside the scope of the Bill. People who have been working in certain types of companies or for themselves often find, when they lose their jobs, that they are entitled to no benefit at all. This may be because they were self-employed or because their work was short-term, consisting of several different contracts going back over a long period. The shock of this discovery for people who have been working all their lives in a particular part of the economy is something that must be dealt with. The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, has touched on this. My colleagues have highlighted the reasons the Government will not accept the Bill, relating to amendments to sections 1 and 6.

I will conclude with some thoughts on how we can move this issue forward and what the future will be. The Minister, Deputy Bruton, has outlined a process of moving to a two-tier structure where we will amalgamate a lot of the bodies that are there at the moment and bring them together in the hope of making the system clearer. He has already introduced some changes. I heard Deputy Ann Phelan speak about a single application form and a single contact portal. However, the most important thing on which we must focus is the administration of the work to ensure that it happens in line with people's expectations; that when they contact this new structure that they receive a response within a reasonable period and that at all times they are clear about where they stand within the process. We can create new structure after new structure but a quantity of work remains to be done to support the system and ensure it operates in a timely and transparent fashion. That would make a huge difference.

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