Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not want to talk about any individual case on the floor of the Dáil but I want to make it very clear that it is unlawful to dismiss a person from his or her job simply because he or she is a member of a trade union. Nobody should lose his or her job because he or she has chosen to join a trade union in Ireland. It is important to say that.

I take the Deputy's point in terms of the strength of the jobs market at the moment but we have to pass legislation for all circumstances. Who knows where we will be in five years' time or even two years' time, given the extraordinary disruptions to which we have had to respond over the past five to seven years from Brexit to Covid to the impact of the war in Ukraine? Who knows what the future holds? You cannot legislate for a full employment situation and you certainly should not be legislating on the basis of significant unemployment either, so we need to get the balance right in terms of upgrading legislation. Any legislation that dates back as far as this does needs to be reviewed. We are setting up a process to do that.

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