Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The proposed legislation attempts to weaken the very narrow conditions in procurement legislation, which emphasise low-cost and low-price tenders. The Bill is very weak and vague and does not explicitly protect workers’ rights, as shown by the examples I will give now with regard to the comments of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. What it said about tax compliance was there were many companies with public contracts headquartered in tax havens. Greyhound Waste has been operating Dublin City Council’s waste collection since 2012. The city council only discovered it was owned by an Isle of Man holding company after the contract was awarded. Dublin Street Parking Services, which operated Dublin City Council’s clamping service, is owned by Quinlan (Raglan) Limited and Quinlan (Morehampton), which are both based in the Isle of Man. GoSafe, a company that operates speed camera vans on behalf of the State, is owned by a parent company headquartered in the Isle of Man. I could go on. We had the strike in Rhatigan's in Lucan, which lasted for six months, a couple of years ago. It had a contract from the Department of Education and Skills to build a school. Its union, Unite, reckons the workers were being paid €5 an hour. They got around the REA and the minimum wage regulations by forcing people to be self-employed but in reality it was bogus self-employment. The State asked no or very few questions. Unfortunately, that is all too common.

Our view is there are huge issues to be tackled here and the Bill does not go very far in addressing them. The Bill is quite weak, almost to the point that we are considering whether we might abstain on it because it is of such little value. If we do vote in favour of it on Thursday, it will be an extremely critical "Yes" vote.

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