Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to speak to the section as well. Before I do, however, I will raise some concerns I have about the way in which the Minister is approaching the question of the increase in optional retirement ages for members of uniformed services. I too place on the record my concerns about the manner in which the Minister is approaching this matter, which is extremely acute and extremely sensitive.

If the Minister does not want to listen to us as Opposition Members, I suggest she take the advice of not only the Irish Council for Civil Liberties but the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission as well. She may be familiar - certainly, her officials will be - with the letter provided to Deputies this afternoon. Deputy Pringle read elements of that very important missive into the record this afternoon. We need to be more than cognisant of it. Arguably, if the Minister proceeds on this basis, creating two separate forms of citizenship, as it were, in the absence of all the safeguards to which Deputy Howlin and others referred, then there is a distinct possibility that this rushed legislation will find itself challenged at the first available opportunity in the superior courts. This is bad lawmaking. It is extremely risky. It is dangerous. We are routinely subjected to the situation we face this evening every July and every December: running up against the clock, finding down the back of the couch stray legislation that various Ministers want to introduce and inserting it into some kind of melange, some kind of miscellaneous provisions Bill, whereby provisions have no direct relationship at all with one another. That is, by definition, bad lawmaking. We can do better in this House, and the Minister can do better. I regret that we may be in a position in the next few months where she will regret taking this hasty approach. This can wait. Good lawmaking can wait. As Deputy Pringle said, the House is prepared to work with the Minister to finesse and nuance this legislation and to ensure that the best standards of human rights are applied to our interpretation of this and that we proceed in this direction safely and with caution and prudence. We are not doing that this evening.

If I may speak in general terms to this section of the Bill, I will have to refer to this through the lens of remarks I made on Second Stage about the decision made by the Minister - made, indeed, collectively by line Ministers - to increase the retirement age of uniformed services members from 60 to 62. No explicit reference to 62 is made in the legislation, and for a variety of reasons members of our uniformed services are concerned about the capacity of future Ministers to make unilateral decisions on the retirement age of uniformed services members, without any requirement to consult or engage with those members. They are members we say we all value to protect our State and to keep us secure. Those concerns are very well grounded. I spoke at length on Second Stage about the rationale for their concerns, and we in the Labour Party are extremely concerned about this. We know that a similar capacity to extend the retirement age of prison officers, for example, is available in the UK, and prison officers there now work until 68 years of age. It is not acceptable, not on, that the Minister would not provide in law for an obligation to be placed on future Ministers to consult and engage with recognised trade unions and recognised representative bodies of uniformed services members. They are public servants. We depend on them, as I said earlier, to protect us and to make our State secure. Again, we can do better.

Many of the uniformed services representative groups gave a guarded welcome to the idea that the retirement age would, on an optional basis, move to 62 at this point, but it was a guarded welcome and it came with conditions. There are concerns about the loss of fast accrual in terms of pension. If you go from 60 to 62, as this legislation is constructed, you fall back to the position where your pension rights for those two years go back to the idea of standard service, and that is it. That in itself is not good enough. The Minister will be aware from the Second Stage debate and, possibly, from direct contact from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions that affiliated bodies are extremely concerned about the direction of travel of this and the discretion that future Ministers will have, whereby they will not be bound by an obligation to consult with trade unions and representative bodies.

I did attempt to amend this legislation in a way that we believe is well informed. We took advice in that regard. As for the amendments, while we always accept the intervention and the ruling of the Chair, we are concerned that there may be a misreading of what we were trying to achieve. Simply, what we were trying to achieve was to introduce an obligation on the Minister to consult - that is all - with recognised trade unions and representative bodies, and we made that point very clearly. I received last night notification from the Ceann Comhairle's office that the amendment brought forward by the Labour Party in my name was ruled out of order for a range of different reasons. I requested an explanation from the Ceann Comhairle's office in that regard and the explanation was, quite frankly, concerning. We do accept it as Members of the House, albeit grudgingly. It is important that we reflect on this for a moment. What I was seeking to do was simply to place an obligation on the Minister to consult. I was not imposing any form of responsibility on trade unions to decide themselves, but that seemed to be the interpretation placed on our proposed amendment by the Ceann Comhairle's office.

The ruling reads:

These [that is, trade unions and representative bodies ] are third-party bodies not under the auspices of the Minister or the Houses. This would have the effect of making the commencement of Part 7 [the relevant part of this Act], containing core provisions of the Bill, contingent on an administrative process which is external to the control of the Houses.

It is a long-established principle in the assessment of amendments which would have the effect of making the commencement of an Act, or core provisions thereof, contingent on administrative matters external to the control of the House must be seen as in conflict with the principle of the Bill as read a second time; they limit the commencement in a manner that would be indeterminable by the Houses.

Those are very interesting remarks. My amendment does not, in fact, introduce a conflict; it introduces a restriction. In my view, this interpretation of what we are trying to achieve is a misreading and constitutes a form over-reach. It answers a question that I did not ask at all in the amendment I tabled.

The groups of workers who come under the aegis of this particular section of the Bill have very circumscribed collective bargaining rights. They understand and accept that because of the nature of the work they do and their relationship with the security and policing of the State. Quite frankly, they deserve better. It is not good enough that this requirement for consultation and debate will not be inserted into the legislation. I flagged very clearly on Second Stage that I would be proposing a variety of amendments on Committee Stage and subsequently on Report Stage. We know what has happened as regards Report Stage of the Bill.

I will repeat a point I have made because it is important. Under Salient Ruling 145, the amendment should have been permitted. On another salient ruling, Salient Ruling 148, in the context of the industrial policy of the State, a wider and relevant consideration under Salient Ruling 148, it cannot conceivably be argued that an amendment requiring consultation between an employer and trade unions is in conflict with the principles of a body of legislation governing the terms and conditions of employment of civil and public servants. This is where the misreading, misunderstanding and misinterpretation of what we are trying to achieve stems from. Nobody is placing any kind of responsibility on a body outside of this House for making law or obstructing the making of law or ministerial decisions. It is merely about consultation. That is all. If we are now at a point where we cannot put into primary legislation the concept of a form of partnership, that has serious ramifications for industrial relations in this country and how we have de factodone things in this State for quite some time. I am concerned that we are not in a position to amend this Bill to place the Minister under that obligation to consult. I am especially concerned that we did not get the opportunity to explicitly include the age limit of 62 in the legislation because, as it is constructed, the Minister and future Ministers will have wide-ranging powers to make unilateral decisions about retirement ages within our uniformed services without an obligation to consult and engage.

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