Michael Ahern (Cork East, Fianna Fail)

I thank Senator McDowell for bringing this amendment to my attention. Its purpose is to provide that the Labour Court will, on appeal from a rights commissioner's decision, have similar powers, where an employer fails to provide a written statement or where such a statement is evasive or equivocal, to draw any inference it considers just and equitable in the circumstances and to determine whether the employee's contract should be a fixed-term contract or a contract of indefinite duration.

I consider this to be a helpful amendment to the Bill. As a consequence of my acceptance of the amendment, it will be necessary to insert another reference to "Labour Court" after "rights commissioner" in line 35 on page 10 of the Bill. I intend to introduce an amendment to that effect on Report Stage later this week.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment No. 8 not moved.

Question proposed: "That section 9, as amended, stand part of the Bill."