Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I can give an assurance to Deputies Cowen and Collins that existing contracts remain and can only be altered by agreement. The fact that the REAs have been struck down, therefore, does not alter the contract an individual has with his or her employer. The same applied when the EROs were struck down - the contracts remained and the record will show there was no wholesale cutting of wages as a result of the period during which they were not underpinned.

Deputy Collins asked what would happen to the REAs. Obviously they will have to be reconstituted under the 2012 Act. The Deputy asked if new legislation was needed. The 2012 Act was drafted after this case was initiated and in that legislation we sought to establish policies and principles that would guide the establishment of such orders and agreements as well as reviews by the Labour Court that would ensure the workers and employers were representative of the broad category for which they claimed to negotiate, and so on. A number of hurdles are involved. These issues come to me, as Minister, and are laid before the Oireachtas. This was all designed to deal with the legal frailties that had been established in the John Grace Fried Chicken case.

In answer to Deputy Cowen's point, the new 2012 Act provides for principles and policies, including looking at the competitiveness of the sector as defined in broad terms in the Act. It provides that in the formation of a new REA the whole environment must be considered and, in that sense, it allows a review of the competitiveness, flexibility and appropriateness to the economic conditions in which the agreement is negotiated. We will wait for wait for advices from the Attorney General in order to have full understanding of the judgment before we proceed but that is the position at present, as I understand it.

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