Derek McDowell (Labour)

Amendment No. 61 seeks to amend the standard rules by providing that the forum should meet at least four times a year. I can anticipate the Minister of State's response in that he will probably say there is provision for the forum to meet in any event in exceptional circumstances where the employee representatives wish to do so.

This goes to the core of the Bill in that we must ask ourselves why we are providing for the forum in the first instance. Of course, it is being provided for in exceptional circumstances where there is a crisis and when serious changes in work practices and serious levels of redundancies are being contemplated. We expect the mechanism will be used most often in these circumstances.

However, it would be a good thing to inculcate a culture of information and consultation whereby, on a regular basis, there is a forum where employee representatives and employers meet to consult about matters that concern them both and to provide information about how the company is doing and the nature of its plans. If we accept the proposition that it should be a routine matter as well as a crisis management issue, it appears reasonable that the forum should meet at least four times a year, which would not be particularly onerous on anyone, rather than twice a year, which is the current provision.

Since we are discussing the other amendments with this amendment, I have some difficulty with Deputy Quinn's amendment. It is not difficult to envisage circumstances whereby a meeting of the forum takes place and there is a discussion on future plans, and essentially the local employers, the Irish representatives of an American multinational corporations, may say after the event that they did not know what was coming down the line.

I do not know how multinational corporations work. Perhaps they do not always keep their Irish management fully briefed on their international plans. I suspect that in many instances multinational corporations shift from one country to another without first informing local management. I appreciate that this puts local employers in some difficulty because they cannot be found guilty of not transmitting information they did not have. However, if we were to accept the principle behind Senator Quinn's amendment, we would be going too far, because it would, in effect, be acknowledging that even if they did know that it was intended to move elsewhere, because it was not within their competence to do anything about it, they would not have to transmit that information. I do not think we could accept this proposal.