Paul Coghlan (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Michael Ahern, to the House and thank him for his overview of the Bill. I welcome the Bill which makes further and better provision for promoting harmonious relations between workers and employers. It amends and extends the Industrial Relations Acts 1946 to 2001 and the Protection of Employees (Employers' Insolvency) Act 1984.

As the Minister of State outlined, the Bill flows from the national agreement, Sustaining Progress, and is another incremental improvement in our law. The Bill will strengthen the procedures of existing legislation as agreed by trade union and employer representatives. It provides them with the opportunity to negotiate a solution to industrial disputes in situations where collective bargaining arrangements are not in place. It is also welcome that the Bill puts time limits on and gives certainty to many of the procedures and processes of the industrial relations machinery for the resolution of disputes through the various bodies and structures established over the years. The various bodies provided for in law, such as the Labour Court and the Labour Relations Commission, and other mechanisms of arbitration which are in use have worked well. The Bill, once enacted, will bring some speed to the resolution of many conflicts by placing time limits on those disputes in a comprehensive and collective way, providing certainty for all parties involved. That there will be a time limit provided within which they must exhaust all the processes of an industrial dispute is also to be welcomed.

Much has been made of the fact that our system of industrial relations is essentially voluntary resulting in a consensus between the social partners that matters are best determined through the process of voluntary bargaining between employers and workers, or between their various associations and the trade unions. This approach to industrial relations has served us well and it is better to build on that, as this Bill does, than to provide for some radical new departure. The Bill therefore underpins that role through the provision of third party industrial relations machinery.

My party acknowledges the work done by employers and ICTU in coming to agreements to amend the 2001 Act. We are living in a different era from that in which we lived when partnership began in the 1980s. We have made significant economic progress over that period. The challenge for social partnership in the future is to set a new agenda of work to meet the great challenge of competitiveness which has been drifting in the wrong direction over recent years as national competitiveness deteriorates rapidly. The various studies carried out by the OECD and other reputable bodies show that our cost base makes Ireland far less attractive than it was approximately ten years ago. We have had a higher than expected notifiable redundancy rate in the past year which we should have done more to avoid and addressed through partnership. We failed to tackle the issue of research and development investment and infrastructural investment in our economy. We have not sustained the progress of the late 1990s and early years of this century to the extent we could and should have done and thereby have frittered away some opportunities for economic development. We approve of the giving of new dispute settling powers to the Labour Court in cases where no arrangements for collective bargaining are in place. This, together with the other measures, should enhance the effectiveness of the procedures put in place by the 2001 Act.

There has been much debate about whether membership of a trade union should be mandatory but the most important point is that people have a right to join a trade union should they so wish. We have quite a high level of trade union membership and the unions have made a major contribution to social partnership together with employers, in conjunction with the State. The partnership approach has worked exceptionally well in facilitating the development of greater economic activity, better realisation of the problems facing the country and a collective method of dealing with these problems. The spirit of partnership, together with industrial relations procedures, has led to this legislation. We graciously acknowledge the work done by IBEC and ICTU in coming to the necessary arrangements and agreements to facilitate this amendment of the 2001 Act. Since the inception of partnership in the 1980s there has been sustained progress and hopefully resources will continue to be available for further implementation of the agreed programme.

We are bedevilled by bottlenecks in infrastructural development such as road, rail, broadband and other measures needed to improve our competitiveness when we are under pressure from eastern European and Far Eastern countries. The National Competitiveness Council has warned us several times that we must improve. We are now playing catch up which is not easy. The national development plan has been cut back and there has been a slow-down in many projects. These are important for our towns and cities and essential for freeing up land, opportunities for investment and projects which would provide sustainable investment in the future. Partnership has changed in line with changes in the work agenda since the late 1980s. Employers and employees are being hung out to dry because of job insecurity and unnecessary market uncertainty following the deterioration in competitiveness.

Section 2 of the Bill introduces a new code of practice on dispute resolution which was part of the Bill in 2001. This is an improved and strengthened measure and the section also deals with the code of practice which will put a time limit on dispute resolution between six and 34 weeks, which is a reasonable length of time within which to come to an agreement. Some disputes were more protracted than others. The new machinery will bring certainty to the process and hopefully concentrate the minds of those involved at an earlier stage. Section 3 also seems a very worthwhile improvement because it establishes a single process to resolve the preliminary and substantive issues which are part of the problem or problems. Far too often preliminary hearings are held but the substantive issues are postponed for a period. While this may allow people to concentrate on the issues, the process of dealing with them at the same time will help to accelerate the process.

Section 8, dealing with victimisation, is one of the most important sections of this Bill and I assume it covers bullying in the workplace. Perhaps the Minister of State might say more on this when he comes to respond because in his speech he referred to the code of practice on victimisation which I take it has yet to be drawn up and agreed.

I welcome this legislation which brings to fruition the experiences gained from the 2001 Act which highlighted several issues requiring technical resolution. It will hopefully speed up the process of resolving disputes as originally intended by the 2001 Act on which this is a significant improvement. It will give greater clarity and early resolution to many of the problems prevalent throughout business and industry. No one wishes to see disputes drag on because extra time often entrenches cases more than necessary. Time limits for a resolution of disputes should advance the best prospect for resolution and enhance the industrial relations machinery provided.