Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Independents 4 Change technical group, I would also like to be associated with the warm congratulations to the Labour Party on the passage of this very important Bill. I also welcome the trade union colleagues and self-employed workers in the Visitors Gallery who fought long and hard for this development. Particular congratulations are due to Senators Ged Nash and Ivana Bacik who brought the Bill through the Seanad and into this House.

It was about 18 or 19 years ago when I moved the first trade union recognition Bill on behalf of the Labour Party when I was the enterprise, trade and employment spokesperson. We were taking on very powerful private interests at that stage, particularly led by Ryanair, which absolutely refused to recognise key members of its workforce. Although the subsequent long Fianna Fáil Government adopted one or two elements of that Bill, it refused point blank to accept the substantive general recognition across the sectors of the economy for collective bargaining that we had in the Bill at that time.

Deputy Bríd Smith rightly referred to the onset and development of the gig economy. We think especially of how vulnerable workers are in many of the arts industries in film, music, radio broadcasting and other areas. There is a particular vulnerability there for workers. Often, workers are generally self-employed in all those areas. I welcome the fact that research will be done on how to protect workers further all across the arts industries, especially in view of the context of the development of digital media whereby the enormous work of artists can very often be transmitted without due reward for the efforts they have made.

This is a very important Bill. Again, I commend the Labour Party and the Minister on bringing it to this point and getting it passed through the Oireachtas.

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