Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There will be no coercion. That should not be asserted. There simply cannot be coercion. The Water Services (No. 2) Act 2013 provides that local authority staff who are subject to a service-level agreement with Irish Water would transfer to Irish Water should the agreement end. The existing terms and conditions of these staff are protected under the Act in such circumstances. In outlining its expectations about the next phase of transformation, the Government fully respects these terms and conditions, which can only be changed by collective agreement. That is the factual position and why, given the complexity and scale of what is involved here, it is deemed important that the engagement would take place with the Workplace Relations Commission to identify and agree a framework for the future delivery of water services. In some respects, this could be progression and an advance for workers once their core rights are protected. That is a key point. In the past, there have been agreements where those rights were protected as different utilities were developed.

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