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

There was, first and foremost, grotesque capitalism. At least the Chinese are building houses with their state construction company, which this Government is not doing.

We have a long and proud co-operative history that is still visible today. There is a legal lacuna and that is the reason the Minister of State is telling us tonight that we need consolidation. I have been looking for consolidation of the Traffic Acts for 15 or 20 years, nearly as long as I have been in this House, and I am still looking for it. Will the Government refer this to the Law Reform Commission? If the Government wants a comprehensive Bill, of which our Bill could be a part, will it bring it forward and stop talking about it? The Minister of State did not even mention the Law Reform Commission and whether or not it has ever had that task.

Europe has a great history of co-operatives. Deputy Joan Collins mentioned Italy. We also know about the Mondragon Corporation in the Basque country. It is a huge, powerful co-operative for the Basque nation - and it is a nation - within Spain. It played a role in promoting the economic well-being of the Basque people and all the people of the Iberian peninsula. The supporting legal systems of those countries are better than ours and that is the key point we are raising here.

The UK has a great tradition. The 70,000 workers in John Lewis stores own their own company. A John Lewis store in Liverpool or Manchester, or wherever, is owned by the people on the floor. It is their company. Waitrose, the food retailer, is another example. There is also a great tradition in the British Labour Party with co-ops. Many Members of Parliament are co-op members. It is the Labour and Co-Operative Party in the UK.

It is amazing that our legislation dates back to 1893. The Minister of State mentioned the 2014 Act but, again, Fine Gael has had an opportunity over the past eight years to modernise the legislation and it has not been taken. It is amazing that we are still relying on United Kingdom legislation that goes back before Independence. We recently celebrated 100 years of Dáil Éireann. Given the tradition the Irish tradition of co-ops and worker-owned industrial bodies that we have all outlined, we should have had modernising legislation by now.

The Bill reduces membership criteria from seven down to three. The Minister of State said he had a consultation on that and mentioned Finland and various other countries. My colleague, Deputy Clare Daly, in introducing the Bill, said that, in 2014, there were 237,753 small and medium enterprises, SMEs, in Ireland, employing almost a million workers. Those SMEs have an average of 3.87 employees per business, just over three. This is how we came up with three as the number that should be pursued.

I do not see why the Minister of State cannot support this provision.

The Minister of State said only limited companies can have audit exemptions and he has reservations about this provision. He must acknowledge, however, the cost of an audit for many small co-operatives and social enterprises, which are not focused on profit-making but on service delivery for their communities, can make the model unattractive. It must be kept simple.

The Minister of State referred to a statutory instrument concerning electronic filing. Again, this could be put on a legislative basis rather than through a statutory instrument.

Tonight’s debate is valuable because this is an important sector. My colleague, Deputy Pringle, outlined a strong case of how it could become more important in the future in, for example, energy, coping with climate change and getting communities together. Co-operatives still have amazing potential in the finance and social media sectors. For example, some newspapers, because they cannot survive physically, are becoming the property of their readers online. That is a wonderful development and a way of sustaining newspapers.

There are many positive examples in our history of finance, housing and agricultural co-operatives. It is our hope that the Bill would make the establishment of a co-operative society that much easier to encourage community groups and local workers to adapt to a model which benefits the whole of society. Co-ops are based on strong values along with providing good jobs and services beneficial to communities. Long before I was in politics, I was involved in social enterprise. I am still a director of several community companies. I know from board meetings over the years the requirements needed to fulfil statutory rules. People are prepared to do that if they are simple rules. The Minister of State could kick the ball off tonight by accepting the legislation.

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