Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

Senator O'Toole made a point about contracts. A person does not have the same contract if he or she resigns. The same contract applies to a person in seasonal or part-time employment who still has a continuity of entitlement within the public service. That is what these subsections are trying to protect. The chasm to which I referred is that between a person with this entitlement and a person who has resigned or intends to enter the public service. That person is the one with the expectation. The whole Bill is pivoted on that distinction.

Senator Mansergh raised the interesting question of the marriage bar which operated until 1973. At the time of the removal of the bar, legislation was enacted to give priority to people who had been disadvantaged as a result of the bar in regaining access to the Civil Service. That was worthy legislation, but unfortunately the European Commission took a different view and required Ireland to repeal it on the basis that it amounted to discrimination in our entrance requirements for the public service. From time to time the Civil Service commissioners have conducted special examinations for that group on an informal basis, but the formal statutory basis has disappeared since 1996. It therefore follows that after the enactment of this legislation, a person who decides to return to the public service having served and been disqualified by the marriage bar — there will be fewer such people in the future — will be considered a new entrant for the purpose of this legislation. If the person spent a long enough time in the Civil Service before her marriage, which is unfortunately not often the case, she might have preserved a pension right.

Senator McDowell raised the question of nursing. Again, this is a matter of basic labour employment law contracts. The health boards engage nurses on various terms and conditions. If the nurse is in service and remains in service in respect of when he or she is called, he or she has a legal entitlement to be considered by the health board. That is clearly a relationship of continuing employment. If he or she has resigned — if a termination of the relationship is clear upon analysis of the relevant documents — the nurse in question becomes a new entrant on returning to work at that hospital. Senator Walsh made an interesting case about the date of commencement of the whole operation. The Minister has fixed on 1 April as the commencement date, as announced in his budget speech. That is his stated position.