Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Mac Lochlainn for raising this issue. I note he raised it on Committee Stage also. I will give him a full explanation and response to the point he made but I will begin by making two overall points.

The first overall point is that if such an issue needed to be dealt with, this is the wrong body of law within which to raise it. My advice is that to deal with the issue the Deputy raises, the relevant body of law that would need to be amended is equality law and law on the workplace and dismissal within it. The specific point the Deputy raises would need to be dealt with elsewhere than in this Bill because this piece of legislation is not germane to the issue.

Second, as I understand it, the concern Deputy Mac Lochlainn raises is that if a fine was raised against somebody and he or she was not in a position to or did not want to pay, it could be used as grounds for dismissal or could be raised in the workplace. On foot of the Deputy's comment to the Minister on Committee Stage, the Department checked whether this had been raised as an issue in the recent past, and to date we do not have evidence that payment or non-payment of a fine has been used in a workplace or in employment law in the way the Deputy mentioned.

Overall, the two points I make are, first, that the issue the Deputy raises needs to be dealt with elsewhere in equality and workplace law, which would be the responsibility of the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, and second, on the Deputy's point, we do not have evidence to date that this has occurred in a workplace and, therefore, do not currently believe it to be the issue that Deputy Mac Lochlainn does. At this stage we do not propose and are not able to accept his amendment.

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