Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Amendment No. 7 seeks to require the Labour Court to attempt to get the consent of both parties to a registered employment agreement, REA, before the court makes an order providing for its variation. It is important to set out in some detail the precise provisions in section 8 which provide for the procedures to be followed for a variation of a REA. In circumstances where all parties to the agreement so agree, the court will consider the matter and, having had regard to the same matters specified for its initial registration, make its decision.

Where one party wishes to vary the agreement but the other does not, the Bill provides for the initiation of comprehensive dispute resolution procedures involving local discussions, referral to the Workplace Relations Commission for conciliation, and Labour Court hearings and recommendations. If after the exhaustion of all these procedures no agreement has been reached, a party may apply to the Labour Court to have the agreement varied in terms of the court’s recommendation. Having considered the application and heard all parties involved, the court may refuse or grant such a variation as the court deems appropriate.

Where an REA provides that a party may withdraw from the agreement where the court has made a variation order in such circumstances, a party may inform the court of its intention to withdraw from the agreement. Accordingly, the court will be required to cancel or vary the agreement as appropriate.

It is clear that section 8 already provides for quite exhaustive procedures involving the parties themselves, the Workplace Relation Commission’s conciliation service and the Labour Court itself with the clear objective of trying to obtain the consent of both parties to a variation in an REA where one party does not initially agree. I would expect that a decision by the Labour Court to vary an REA in the absence of agreement, particularly following the exhaustion of the comprehensive dispute settlement provisions in the Bill, would be very much the exception, if it were to happen at all. Ultimately, it is open to one of the parties to withdraw from the agreement, resulting in its probable cancellation.

Given that the objective of Deputy Calleary’s amendment is already comprehensively addressed in section 8, I cannot accept this amendment.

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