Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

In economics, one gets lots of opinions and with each economist, one gets another opinion. Perhaps it is not dissimilar in Deputy O'Dea's own profession, although I cannot speak of it with first-hand familiarity. The truth is that the court demolished the legislation in place for a number of reasons, including the lack of exercise of discretion by the Minister. It was not solely the issue of whether there were principles and the observation of procedures. The court clearly recognised that when monetary impositions were being made on people who were exposed to a penalty, there needed to be ministerial discretion to justify that this was in accordance with proper delegated functions, and there had to be the Oireachtas piece. Deputy Tóibín envisages the possibility that a Minister might strike down this in future. We could equally say an Oireachtas of the future might strike down orders. The court has said that without this level of parliamentary oversight, the system cannot be sustained. We are seeking to making sure we are not back here again with another set of legislative proposals designed by the Oireachtas and found by the courts to be failing in respect of proper procedure, proper fairness and proper parliamentary accountability.

Of course the courts do not prescribe the new architecture. We have to get legal advice on how to put in place architecture that will be robust from challenge. That is what has been done here. Deputy O'Dea states this exposes people who we should be protecting the whimsical power of the Minister. We are not trying to do that. We are trying to make a building that is robust and will not be blown down by the first legal challenge. This is one of the issues the courts have raised.

The Deputy was a member of the Government that put together the National Minimum Wage Act 2000, and I presume the best legal advice was obtained for that. That Government adopted the same procedure to make sure it had a robust Act and that there would not be successful challenges to the national minimum wage. That Act has proved to be robust and it has not been subject to challenge, whereas this other procedure has been subject to challenge and it has failed. We are applying the same principles as that Government to buttress the JLCs and the REAs in order to make them robust from attack. I am not trying to undermine people's rights in this Bill. I want to make sure we are not back here again because the courts have struck down the defences we have put in place for people who work in vulnerable areas of the economy.

While I recognise the importance of this debate, precedence shows this has been used before in legislation that has proved to be robust. I am applying proper protections as it will have to be notified to the court in writing as to why a Minister turned down this. It is not the exercise of whim without accountability. It will be subject to judicial review, like all those cases. The Oireachtas element of oversight is built into the procedure. This is a robust way to approach the problem. I ask the Deputies to accept that what I am trying to do is deliver legislation that will stand the test of time, and that I am not in any way trying to dilute its intention.

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