Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 3, line 12, after “together;” to insert the following:“to amend the Employment Equality Act 1998, the National Minimum Wage Act 2000, the Workplace Relations Act 2015 and the Companies Act 2014;”.

Amendment No. 1 is required to amend the Long Title of the Credit Guarantee (Amendment) Bill 2015 to reflect amendments to the Workplace Relations Act 2015 and certain other enactments.

Amendment No. 6 is required to insert a new section 101(4A) into the Employment Equality Act 1998. As I said earlier, this amendment was initially provided for in section 83(1)(m)(iii) of the Workplace Relations Act 2015; however, this provision was inadvertently deleted by section 20(n)(i) of the National Minimum Wage (Low Pay Commission) Act 2015 with a number of other amendments to the Workplace Relations Act that were being effected. This amendment is necessary and ensures, in the new workplace relations adjudication framework, that a complainant cannot recover both under the Unfair Dismissals Act and the Employment Equality Act in respect of the same dismissal. The new section 101(4A) provides that a person who has referred a dismissal complaint under both the Unfair Dismissals Act and the Employment Equality Act has to elect between one or the other by a prescribed date or date to be inferred from regulations by the Minister. If the person fails to elect by this date, the discriminatory dismissal complaint will be deemed to have been withdrawn. It is therefore necessary to make provision for section 101(4A) to be reinserted into the Employment Equality Act 1998.

Amendment No. 7 is required to correct a typographical error in section 34 of the National Minimum Wage Act 2000. Paragraph 13 in part 1 of Schedule 7 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 amended section 34 of the National Minimum Wage Act 2000. However, as a result of a typographical error, there are currently two subsections (6) in section 34 of the National Minimum Wage Act 2000. The proposed amendment to section 34 will correct this error.

On amendment No. 8, the amendment in paragraph (a) relates to section 37 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015. Section 37 of the 2015 Act makes provision for the transfer of the power to prosecute for employment-related summary offences under relevant enactments from the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to the Workplace Relations Commission. This amendment is required to make provision for the transitional arrangements that will apply for the transfer of this power from the Minister to the WRC. The amendment will have the effect that the new arrangements for the prosecution of offences, as provided for in section 37, will only apply in respect of offences committed or alleged to have been committed after the commencement of section 37.

The amendment in paragraph (b) relates to an amendment to paragraph 5, Part 2 of Schedule 1 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015. This amendment is necessary to amend an incorrect reference to the Employment Permits Act 2003, which should have read the Employment Permits Act 2006.

On amendment No. 9, the Companies Act 2014 was enacted on 23 December 2014 and commenced on 1 June 2015. The Act consolidated the previously existing 17 Companies Acts into one Act. One of the Acts which the 2014 Act repealed and replaced was the Companies (Auditing and Accounting) Act 2003. The 2003 Act established the Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority, IAASA and, in section 14, it provided that this authority could levy prescribed accountancy bodies for the purposes of meeting expenses properly incurred by it in performing its functions. Section 916 of the Companies Act 2014 re-enacted section 14 of the 2003 Act, but inadvertently limited the application of moneys from the levy. This amendment will ensure that the IAASA can levy the prescribed accountancy bodies for the purposes of meeting expenses properly incurred by it in performing its functions as was intended.

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