Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We will be supporting this legislation with the issue of collective bargaining at its core. In many instances, companies have just wound up overnight with large numbers of people let go. We think of Debenhams, TalkTalk, Clerys and numerous others over the decades where similar things have happened. These people are left with very little hope and nowhere to turn. The only chance they have is through the trade unions of which they may be members. In many cases they will not be because many of these companies have a very jaundiced view about their employees joining trade unions, which has also been an issue. It is to be welcomed that this legislation goes some way towards dealing with this and is certainly an advance on where we have been up to now.

The measures of ensuring all collective redundancies are subject to the 30-day notification period before they take effect represents significant progress. There are a number of other issues. The employment law review group is also very positive step. The overall policy of the scheme to enhance the protection for employees in collective redundancies is very welcome. However, in many cases these involve quite large companies and corporations which simply overnight walk away and have done it in a planned way. They have planned it in secret and to the detriment of employees. While we can try to legislate for it, we really need to ensure as much as possible that people have the power of being part of a trade union. That is the biggest power they can possibly have.

While many of them may be corporations and companies, one of the big issues we have is that when people are in employment, even in what were traditionally considered to be permanent long-term jobs, they are no longer regarded that way. I regularly speak to people who tell me they are in a job which they thought was a pretty good one. I was recently speaking to someone who worked in a bank. When they went looking for a mortgage, they discovered their job in the bank was not considered to be the long-term permanent job it would have been in the past. There is a kind of a funny twist in it that everything now is in short-term contracts and does not have the permanent long-term stability that once was there.

Someone in Fórsa talked to me today about its members who work as car testers. There are 130 full-time workers and another 40 to 50 working part time on short-term contracts which range from a year to two years. Some of them have been there for four or five years on these kinds of rolling contracts. Representatives of the Road Safety Authority told the committee they felt they needed 170 full-time people but it does not employ 170 full-time people. Many of the others do not take up the positions because they are not long term and are not sustainable. They cannot plan their lives around a two-year contract. That is the difficulty we have and this is a State agency.

We need to ensure employment, particularly in long-term professions like this, can be sustainable for people so that they can plan their lives around it and know where their future is. If they cannot do that, they will have difficulty in establishing themselves in their community or society, especially if they want to buy a home. People often leave Ireland not because they cannot get employment here but because they cannot establish the kind of long-term sustainable life that they want to have and they need to go abroad to do that.

I recently spoke to a qualified veterinary surgeon who was trying to buy a house but could not get a mortgage. He was offered a position in France and once he was there for six months, he would be offered a mortgage immediately. While he would be earning less money than here, he could plan his life around it which people cannot do in this country. One of the main reasons they cannot do it here is because employment is not considered as long-term and stable in the way it used to be. That has changed. We need to recognise that change is not positive and is led by the corporate mindset of the gig economy. It is not good for our society and does not help in trying to keep people in the country and maintaining the skills we need here. In the long term, it is not good for the communities we want to try to build and enhance.

This legislation has considerable merit and does some good stuff. It needs to be strengthened in places and Deputy O'Reilly has pointed out some of the amendments that need to be made. I hope the Minister will accept those amendments, understanding that they are brought in a constructive way to try to make this legislation better to deliver for everyone across our society. This is not just for the workers but also for the employers. They want to employ people and want to keep them working in their community as part of their community. They want them to be part of their business to build and develop their business. If they do not give them good long-term jobs which are sustainable and properly paid with good conditions, they will not keep those people because they will not be able to stay. We have work to do in this area.

Some companies can go through difficult times, and there may be a bit of turbulence with regard to the economy at the moment, particularly with the various conflicts, interest rates and various other difficulties that can cause problems for companies. Brexit has been the big one with which we have all had to deal. At the same time, our economy is doing reasonably well. There are two sets to that economy: the multinational corporation set, which is doing really well, and the domestic economy, which is doing reasonably well but needs more support and more help. One key way to support that economy to grow, to develop and to be sustainable long-term is to ensure the people who work in it have secure, long-term employment which they can count on and around which they can build and plan their lives. This legislation is welcome in that it goes some distance to doing that.

I commend the work that has been done on this. It is to be hoped the amendments which have been put forward can be accepted by the Government and that we can improve the Bill for the future.

See this speech in context