Results 4,201-4,220 of 12,378 for speaker:Louise O'Reilly

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: I thank the witnesses for their evidence and the information they have provided. I have a few questions. I am looking at the report published by Maynooth University in this area. It is a decent report. One of the key recommendations of the report, recommendation 3, states: "The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) and the Marine Survey Office of the Department of Transport (MSO) should...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: I appreciate that. On that specific point, I understand that if a vessel arrives during the middle of the night it might be difficult to scramble a team together, much less a team of interpreters equipped with all the language skills. At a guess, however, the vast majority of inspections do not take place in the middle of night. Where one has notice of the arrival of a vessel and that will...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: Do the inspectors bring with them material in a range of languages to distribute to the workers, or is it only in English? We dealt with an issue related to work permits at the committee previously and while information on them was on the WRC's website in a range of languages, which is welcome, the signposts signalling people to go to the website was only in one language. The information is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: That is welcome. Could Mr. O'Brien comment on the use of interpreters?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: Prosecutions, including these 20, are not notified to the Department of Justice as a matter of course.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: Seriously?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: Is it expected that officials in the Department of Justice will just google to try to find out if there have been prosecutions? It strikes me that much more could be done by the WRC in this instance. I and Senator Gavan, who is also on this call, have used the services of the WRC as former union officials and I appreciate that it is stretched. It does not strike me as best practice,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: There was a slight dropout on the call and I did not hear that information. Did Mr. Kelly say that there were one or two employers involved?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: That is fine. I thought I had heard that all 20 of the prosecutions had been for one or two employers. The repeat offenders, therefore, are not-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: Those employers are abusing the scheme, so the WRC should definitely report those prosecutions to the Department of Justice. It is worrying that the WRC has not been doing that already. I apologise, because I had intended to give some time to Mr. O'Brien to allow him to comment. Perhaps I may get an opportunity to do that in the next round of questions.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: I will get back to the recommendations but I join with Senator Gavan and others in expressing our thanks to Mr. Ken Fleming for all the work he did in this area. Nobody can dispute that he was passionate and committed to shining a light on poor work practices. I say again, for the record, that we are not dealing with the majority of employers in this instance but employers who want to do...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: Will Mr. O'Brien elaborate on the issue with a Twitter campaign? That is a version of social media but anybody who uses social media knows there are horses for courses. Will Mr. O'Brien detail how the Twitter campaign may have been limited in its reach? What could be done about that? If there is a social media campaign and we add town hall meetings to it, what else can be done to reach...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: That is very good advice and I was aware of it because I live in a small fishing community. The full moon does things to prawns, although I do not know what. There was a submission from Mr. O'Brien and the ITF to the committee and it references the penalties applied, arguing they are not dissuasive enough to prevent repeat offending by some vessel owners. I stress it is a small number of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: That is welcome.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: That is very welcome. Does Mr. Kelly have a timeframe for the establishment of these town hall meetings and when they will happen?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: I thank Mr. O'Brien for that response. In his opening statement Mr. Kelly referenced that to date, 20 prosecutions have been brought against fishing vessel owners relating to offences under employment legislation. That is in the context of 170 vessels. I am interested to hear about repeat offenders. Mr. O’Brien outlined that the provision that exists for repeat offenders to be...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Resourcing and Capacity of the Workplace Relations Commission: Discussion (20 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: Okay. I appreciate Mr. Kelly is reluctant to say but surely the penalty must hit them in the pocket as otherwise they will not hear the message. Does Mr. O'Brien have a view on what would constitute a sufficiently dissuasive level of penalty to discourage employers who do not seem capable of doing the right thing in some instances?

Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Singapore: Motion (19 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: I thank the Acting Chair for the opportunity to speak on this important motion. The trade agreement between EU member states and the Republic of Singapore has been in place for some time now. I know from observation of the debate on this agreement in the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence last week that the Minister of State believes it to be working very well. As with all...

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (19 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: On 21 September, the Tánaiste, Deputy Leo Varadkar, said that pay increases are happening across the economy. I would heavily and heartily dispute that but I can tell the Taoiseach it is most definitely not happening in the security industry. I want to ask for an update on the status of the State’s defence of the court challenge taken against the employment regulation order,...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (19 Oct 2021)

Louise O'Reilly: If I could, I wish to speak on my amendment that was ruled out of order. We have discussed this previously. The amendment I proposed has been ruled out of order, but I ask that the Minister of State would give some consideration to the evidence provided in a written submission by Professor Deirdre Ahern. She maintains it is not good practice for a one-person authority to exist and that we...