Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

People are at their wits' end wondering how they will survive and pay their bills this week. They are good people who have worked all their lives. The least they can expect from us in the recession which has hit them is not rhetoric - the 100,000 jobs have now been announced three times - but effective action to ensure there will be no more job losses in the economy. On Second Stage I quoted the economist Jim Power, for whom I have no great grá, but he has estimated that 10,000 jobs could be lost. The Minister has conceded that jobs will be lost as a result of this measure. We are, therefore, passing legislation which could result in 20,000 to 30,000 people enduring hardship because the breadwinner in the house will lose his or her job. It is unconscionable that the Minister of State is so sanguine about this, as is the senior Minister.

It is one thing to say the Attorney General has stated it conforms with the Constitution to backdate the legislation to 5 December, but it is another to make the argument that the Attorney General has stated we must do this. That is a policy decision for the Minister and his Government colleagues. Senators Feargal Quinn, Mary Ann O'Brien and Mary White have provided employment for many decades.

They are business people and they are stating clearly the implications of this are wrong.

I would ask the Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock, as a young Minister starting his career in that capacity, to have the courage to accept and implement this amendment, which is a minor one. There are more substantive ones coming down the line. Does he accept the principle which previous occupants of the position always held dear, that legislation should not be retrospective and to make it so incorporates bad precedent and principles into the law?

Britain got a derogation, and the Minister of State must take much of the responsibility for the fact that the Government failed to get that derogation. The only reason for this I can see is that the Government prevaricated with the former social partners pretending, that they somehow would be given a veto on this legislation. That era has gone. Unions withdrew from social partnership. We do not have social partnership anymore. IBEC, representing the large employers, and the unions benefited significantly through increased salaries. There are union officials who are on €200,000 a year representing small sectoral interests, particularly in the public sector, and it is totally unrealistic and unreasonable. We need to put those days behind us and go back to collective bargaining at local level. Let employers and unions, at local level, decide what is appropriate and what can be done by way of rates of pay and terms and conditions of employment. I appeal to the Minister of State to accept the arguments that are being put before him, and this minor adjustment to the Bill.

Does the Minister of State accept that there will be significant job losses, without quantifying the number, as a consequence of introducing this legislation? I would like a straight answer from him. His senior colleague has put it on the record to the unions that there will be significant job losses. I would ask the Minister of State to put the same on the record of this House.