Mary White (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ahern, who has responsibility for trade and commerce, and his departmental officials. Ireland is a role model for countries in Europe and worldwide for its successful partnership between employees, unions and employers. This partnership has been one of the drivers of the Celtic tiger.

I am most supportive of trade unions. In the mid-1970s I was on the national women's committee of the Federated Workers Union of Ireland. Senator McDowell should not smile. I was privileged to be elected to that committee.

The main aspects of the Bill relate to voluntary dispute resolution and victimisation and I do not intend to go into the details of these issues. If timescales under the voluntary dispute resolution code have been breached and the Labour Relations Commission indicates that no resolution seems forthcoming, the Labour Court is entitled to investigate that trade dispute. The Labour Court is also entitled to investigate trade disputes which were ongoing at the time of the ratification of Sustaining Progress, 26 March 2003, and which the court could not investigate because of industrial action. A trade union can apply to the Circuit Court to have a Labour Court ruling enforced as soon as may be after that ruling has been communicated to the parties involved. The Labour Court can give priority to cases it receives, as appears reasonable to the Labour Court at that time.

There was no code of practice on victimisation in the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2001. This code was introduced in section 8.9 of the Sustaining Progress document. It is now enshrined in law in the 2003 Bill. Some of the key provisions include a definition of victimisation provided in section 8. This definition will include that covered by the code of practice on victimisation as devised by the partnership of the Labour Relations Commission, ICTU and IBEC. Section 9 empowers a rights commissioner to hear a complaint of victimisation from an employee and to make a decision based on that complaint. The decision of the rights commissioner can be appealed to the Labour Court under section 10.

My company, Lir Chocolates, was a very maternalistic one in the early years. We did not have a personnel department because we could not afford specialist staff. I was delighted when a trade union came in because as a small company it was very helpful to the employers, Connie and I. The trade union let us know in a professional manner to what our staff were entitled. It had a positive effect on us. That is the other side of it, from my point of view as an employer and from my participation on the national women's committee of the Federated Workers Union of Ireland.