Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If I could have a couple of minutes, yes. Deputy Ó Ríordáin asked me what I was referring to earlier when I spoke about misinformation or the perception being given. It was repeatedly stated that Covid-19 is not notifiable, which gives the impression that nobody is told of incidences of Covid. That is not the case. The appropriate authority is our public health authorities and they are told.

The question we have to focus on is the impact of the Bill and what it desires to achieve. All of us here would agree to increased protections for employees, which is what we will do. That is what we have to assess and work out but, as it stands, this change would not give significant new or additional information to the Health and Safety Authority as the authority already receives Covid-19 outbreak information from the public health authorities. It is reported to them, yet the impression has been given that it is not being reported, and that might scare some people. That is the wrong impression to be giving, and that is what I was referring to. However, the Bill might create an administrative burden for employers in meeting the new reporting obligations, so it is not as simple as putting a signature on it. That is not the way it works. Something as serious as this has to be analysed properly and then those decisions are made.

Separately, since employers are not informed by the Health Service Executive or by a doctor of individual cases due to privacy reasons, an employer will only be able to report a case of Covid-19 in a workplace to the Health and Safety Authority if he or she is informed of such by the employee. Employers might also feel that they are not able to pass on information about a Covid-19 infection due to the general data protection regulation, GDPR, and wishing to maintain confidentiality with the employee, again to protect the employee's own privacy and rights.

To be clear, on balance, as a Government, it is our view that it is appropriate not to oppose the Bill at this point since the Health and Safety Authority is currently carrying out a regulatory impact assessment on making workplace incidents of Covid-19 reportable to the authority. It is looking into this to determine the difficulties it will cause in the workplace for employers. If it is worthwhile to do that, that is a decision we can make.

To set out the process, what is under way and has been even before this debate, which is a useful opportunity to discuss it, is that the Health and Safety Authority is preparing a regulatory impact assessment, RIA, to support consideration of a proposal already made by the board of the Health and Safety Authority to amend regulation 224 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) (Amendment)(No. 3) Regulations 2016. The proposal aims to introduce a requirement for employers to report cases of Covid-19 that are attributable to work activity to the Health and Safety Authority. The RIA will identify a range of possible options for implementing this proposal. It will give us the evidence to inform the discussion when Deputy O'Reilly's Bill goes forward to Committee Stage, as we are not opposing it and are happy to do that. We can tease this out with the evidence the authority is already gathering, which will prove very useful. The information it is gathering will give us detailed information on the cost, the benefits and the impacts of each option, making it clear to us whether what we are doing here is worthwhile and if it will give us any added value because there are reporting mechanisms already in place. If we can strengthen that, why would the House not agree? That is the information we are trying to gather. This information will provide the board, and our Committee Stage debate, with a basis for a recommendation to be made to the Minister, which is me, on the most appropriate way forward with the proposal. If it recommends it and backs it up with evidence, why would we not implement it? That discussion can happen on Committee Stage as the Bill goes forward because the Government is not opposing it.

I thank Deputy O'Reilly for bringing the Bill forward and all the Deputies for their contributions, but it is important that the tone reflects the reality and the facts. I appreciate that the Bill is intended to improve the overall management of Covid-19 in the workplace and the capacity to deal with the impact on places of work. We will support that work once the RIA evidence is brought forward and recommends that. Across all sections of society our knowledge of and ability to deal with the outbreaks of Covid-19 have improved greatly over the past nine months.

In respect of businesses and workplaces, the Government responded quickly with a range of targeted practical and financial supports as well as protocols to deal with them. Among the practical support offered was the development of the Return to Work Safely Protocol and the recently launched Work Safely Protocol, which was developed in co-operation with the social partners through the Labour Employer Economic Forum, LEEF, process. It was very much involved in that conversation and in implementing that. Everybody is playing their part in implementing that and following that protocol. I believe that is keeping many of us safe as we interact with the workplace.

The Health and Safety Authority has been the lead State agency in co-ordinating the inspectorate response to compliance with the protocol and in offering advice, guidance and support to both employers and employees to assist them in keeping workplaces open and functioning in a safe manner, because of course we want to keep everybody safe as much as we can.

The Health and Safety Authority is aware of the deaths of eight healthcare workers. I understand that the authority is currently assessing the circumstances of those deaths, which is its function and job. Regarding the next steps, the regulatory impact assessment is under way and that will inform our decisions in conjunction with the efforts of this House in the time ahead.

See this speech in context