Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The fight against red tape and extra costs will always be and has always been the argument for getting rid of regulation. By its nature, regulation has an extra cost and creates a level of red tape for businesses. Nobody is arguing that we should get rid of regulation totally. Irish businesses would be more competitive if they were not required to write up health and safety statements or if we got rid of all regulation that exists to prevent problems and ensure firms adhere to their responsibilities to their staff, their environment, community and government.

The point is whether there is a balance between responsibilities to the greater community and the responsibility to make a profit for the shareholders. We need to set the balance there. However, a substantially watered down version of what we require has found its way into the Bill. The Bill is weaker and vaguer. The majority of the concerns of ICTU and the ODCE etc. were ignored. In my experience it is seldom we have seen such strong statements from the three disparate organisations in critique of this element of the legislation. If we are to learn anything from the collapse of the past number of years, it should be that regulation, when necessary, is valuable, saves money in the long term and reduces the cost burden for the State.

See this speech in context