Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this important legislation.

It is timely that legislation has been brought forward to implement the recommendations of the Supreme Court in the case of Wayne Ellis v. the Minister for Justice. As Deputy Martin Kenny outlined, this is only part of the wider picture. It all depends on the mechanisms by which legislation is enforced. The personnel involved in this are our gardaí who are on the front line. As Deputy Martin Kenny said, it is all very well for us to talk about the need for supports in communities, as well as the need for us to tackle drug-related and gang-related crime, the scourge of communities the length and breadth of this State. My community in north County Dublin is no different and is not immune from this.

The best way to tackle this scourge is by resourcing community gardaí and not pretending that every garda is a community one. Not every garda can be a community garda. A community garda is the one who is on the ground, picking up those little bits of intelligence. The community garda is the one talking to the kids from an early age and who knows the communities. It seems sometimes that there is not enough value placed on that work by An Garda Síochána. It is essential, however. Legislation can only ever be a small part of the jigsaw. The men and women who enforce it are the biggest and most important part.

The verdict of the Supreme Court held that, while the Oireachtas can impose mandatory penalties for offences, it can only do so where those penalties apply to all persons equally. Specifically, the Oireachtas cannot create a mandatory penalty which only applies to a particular class of persons, such as a person who has previously committed a particular offence or offences.

Rectifying these matters is necessary and reinforces the importance of the independence of our judicial system. Last week, the Supreme Court made an extremely important ruling on the Workplace Relations Commission. This decision of the court needs to be legislated for as a matter of urgency. The ruling by the Supreme Court in the case of Tomasz Zalewski and the Workplace Relations Commission outlined several issues relating to the Workplace Relations Act 2015 and the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, which are inconsistent with the Constitution. While the Supreme Court rejected the challenge to the Workplace Relations Commission, finding that it was not offensive to the Constitution, the seven-judge panel did, however, rule that aspects of certain legislation are inconsistent with the Constitution. It is imperative that changes are made to the referenced legislation as soon as possible to ensure that its operation is brought in line with the Constitution.

It is for that reason that I have engaged with the Minister of State with responsibility for employment, Deputy English. I have shared with him legislation I have drafted which will address these issues, bringing both the Workplace Relations Act 2015 and the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 in line with the Constitution. Following the ruling of the Supreme Court, I have sought to address the issues such as the ban on public hearings before the Workplace Relations Commission, the absence of a requirement to give evidence on oath, as well as the lack of a specific reference in the legislation to a right to cross-examine anyone giving evidence, among others, by way of the Workplace Relations (Amendment) Bill 2021.

There is no doubt that rectifying these issues is an area where the Opposition and the Government agree and that solutions be enacted as soon as possible. I met with the Minister of State, Deputy English, on Tuesday morning and had a positive engagement with him. It is important that legislation, whether it is mine or the Government's, is enacted to transpose the decision of the Supreme Court into law.

Leafing through this Bill before us reinforces the need to keep a keen eye on our legislation. It is important not to lose sight of the opportunities we have as legislators to update Bills in order to cut issues off at the pass to ensure they do not have to be escalated to the Supreme Court. Will the Minister of State consider the notion of putting in a review clause to deal with anomalies quickly? While there are review clauses in some legislation, they tend just to be box-ticking exercises.

I wish to raise a small issue but one which has affected us all at some stage as we go about our work, namely, the lack of consolidated Acts online.

The Law Reform Commission has many consolidated Acts online but there are also many which are missing. There would be great benefit in supporting the commission to get as many consolidated Acts as possible published online. The latter would help all of us so I ask the Minister of State to take that suggestion on board.

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