Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

There would be a number of effects of accepting this amendment. For example, by deleting the wording "establishing one or more information and consultation arrangements", it reduces the flexibility allowed to employers and employees to agree different information and consultation arrangements to govern different branches or units within an undertaking. We had this debate earlier and I referred to the fact it would come up later. I suspect Senator McDowell would like to see this flexibility continued in the Bill in any event. It also removes the option for employees to carry out direct negotiations with their employers on the type of agreement they wish to put in place. The Bill provides for direct involvement systems which are a common feature of many multinational and indigenous companies. The amendment removes a basic right of employees to negotiate their own agreements and arrangements directly with the employer.

In general in the debate, we have tended to down play the value many employees place on having the facility to have their own arrangements for information and consultation. We have also failed to comprehend the extent to which that happens at present. The amendment removes options the Bill provides in relation to approving an agreement. The Bill allows three options and the proposed amendment reduces this to one. I am a little confused or surprised that it deletes the option allowing for an agreement to be approved by the employee representatives. I would have thought that would have been one of the options which would have been somewhat attractive to people looking for trade union support.

The amendment imposes the standard rules on the parties if no new agreement is negotiated. This is very important because I do not find many people telling me they want to be consigned to dealing with the standard rules. It is important we allow the flexibility for people to reach agreement by the other means in the interim. This amendment does not provide the flexibility and autonomy to the parties to decide the approach to take in terms of renewing agreements. On balance, I do not believe the amendment improves the Bill. Government amendment No. 35, which is being taken with amendment No. 32, is a technical amendment and is the only change I wish to make.

Senator McDowell asked about section 8(3)(c), which states: "where the result of employing any other procedure agreed to by the parties for determining whether this agreement has been so approved discloses that it has been so approved." The reason we included this subsection is that we are very cognisant the fact that in many employment situations for a long time, systems have evolved which have been agreed and which work particularly well. We were very anxious to ensure that where such systems are in place — clearly it would be difficult to specify them in legislation — they could also be used or benefited from in the context of information and consultation. Even under the option in section 8(3)(c), the procedure would have to be agreed by the parties.

I do not see any underlying danger that some cloak and dagger approach might be taken which would undermine the intent or the operation of the Bill. It is sensible to allow for something which we know to be a de facto situation in many companies at present.