Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I apologise, a Chathaoirligh, but I find it difficult to discuss a number of matters, which I understand may be related, together. Amendment No. 26, in the names of Senators White, Coghlan and me, seeks, in page 7, line 1, to replace the word "nominee" with the term "a nominated officer". When I looked at that first, I wondered why that needed to be done. The object of the amendment is simply to bring clarity in terms of who might be a nominee of the Labour Court. As drafted, the Bill provides that the Labour Court could nominate anyone it liked. That is much too broad and we could do with a little more precision. Surely the intention is what we would commonly understand it to be, namely, that the person nominated would be an official from the Labour Court support service. If that is the case, that is what should be stated in the Bill. That is the application of that amendment.

My other amendments relate to the trigger mechanism. Amendments Nos. 27 and 29 involve replacing "10 per cent" with "15 per cent". Amendment No. 30 involves increasing "100 employees" to "250 employees". These amendments refer to an issue raised on Second Stage, namely determining a desirable level for the number of employees requesting an information and consultation system which would trigger the provisions of this legislation. We must guard against a non-representative minority and I certainly have had some experience in the past that where others are not necessarily terribly interested in the topic, a tiny active and vocal minority suddenly take over a concern. The threshold level of 10% is too low in this respect and we would be far better off setting it at 15%.

More important, we need to adjust the absolute number set for the threshold. In the section, the threshold can be as low as 100 employees. In the case of a big firm such as one with 5,000 employees of which there are a few in the country, the threshold would effectively be set at 2% of the total number working in the company, which is far too low. My amendment proposes to increase the threshold to 250 employees. This would bring the percentage threshold in a company of 5,000 employees to 5%, which is still too low in my opinion but it would at least would be better than the 2% proposed.

Those are some of the amendments included in this group. The Minister of State should give serious attention to changing the figures and increasing 10% to 15% and 100 employees to 250.