Sean Barrett (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State. There are several aspects to this legislation. When the industrial relations machinery was overturned in the High Court and sections 42, 43 and 45 of the Industrial Relations Act 1946 and section 48 of the 1990 Act were all found to violate Article 15.2 of the Constitution, we should have accepted it. The economy was far better off afterwards. Most of what is included in the Bill is unnecessary. We still have minimum wage legislation and I support the Government's defence of it against the IMF. As IBEC pointed out, there are still 40 tranches of legislation designed to protect employment. What are we at? The real winners were those in the industrial relations industry which comprises an immense number of gurus, committees and so on. The Minister of State referred to JLCs, registered employment agreements, rights commissioners, the LRC, the social partnership protocol, codes of practice, the Labour Court, the workplace relations reform programme and a public inquiry procedure. We are running around on mountains of jargon and paper. In one case not referred to by the Minister of State Ryanair defeated the whole lot in the Supreme Court. Are we protecting the egos of those involved in the industrial relations sector, with its incredibly complex procedure and use of jargon, or are we considering how the economy works? If it is about how the economy works, I support the Government which defended the minimum wage legislation. There is also other legislation to protect workers adequately.

I am not aware that the sky has fallen down in the years since the decision was made. That was one fear expressed, but the economy has continued to work. The real economy has been at its most valiant, trying to protect jobs against the recession in the economy. The objective in industrial relations should be to deal with the unemployment rate of 14.9%. Those of us in employment should take second place for the moment. The excesses of social partnership, undoubtedly, did serious damage to the country, especially in employments such as the ESB and so on, and this should be recognised. I recall the Taoiseach speaking at the ICTU conference when he distanced himself from social partnership because it had become excessive. It was part of the reason the whole place had imploded.

Let us consider what people who provide work say. The Construction Industry Federation has expressed its disappointment. The Irish Hotels Federation has stated the JLCs provide an outdated and regressive employment framework. The Restaurants Association of Ireland has stated it was outraged. It took a case which it won. It seems that much of the legislation represents our trying to unpick a decision against those who work. This reduces investor confidence in the country and undermines the status of the courts as the institutions to adjudicate on these matters. If one entity wins a case in court, we change the law and get it some other way. Even the most mild of the employers' organisations, IBEC, has stated we should avail of the opportunity to walk away because there is plenty of protection for employer rights. We should have shrunk the IR sector and relied on those basic provisions which IBEC set. IBEC is not the most radical of the business organisations - ISME is - and does not much like what we are doing either.

Looking through the provisions, I mentioned all the quangos and committees referred to in the Minister of State's speech. He stated: "It has been estimated that there were between 62,000 and 79,000 workers in the sectors covered by REAs in 2009." There is a difference of 28%. Is the Department so imprecise that it does not know what the Bill is supposed to protect? He later stated that the JLCs cover between 150,000 and 205,000 workers. There is a 36% difference between those two numbers. Why does the Department not know? Is this Bill not merely the IR sector trying to expand in an economy where the emphasis should be on employment creation and where the protection against exploitation, on which we all will support the Minister of State, is through the minimum wage laws and the established employment laws?

It seems that what we have is an unsatisfactory compromise between the two parties in Government. They have produced a mishmash. Had the Government gone for straightforward employment growth, as Senator Clune stated, Sundays and Saturdays would be working days. We all are plugged into the international system and one should do away with all of the quangos. In parts of the Minister of State's speech, the quangos become more powerful. One can be compelled to be part of them rather than go the Ryanair route and state one does not want to be part of them. If a person is paying good wages and has working conditions which might not satisfy the IR sector but satisfy those working in them, that is good news as far as I would be concerned, particularly in the difficulties in which we find ourselves.

I shall take a look through other parts of the Minister of State's speech for when we go on to further Stages. Unusually, in my view, IBEC got it right in this regard, and so did the organisations which have come out even stronger against the Bill. There was a decision made in a court of law. We had other protections for workers. Apart from a face-saving measure on behalf of the industrial relations sector, which has been far too strong and big in this country, this is an unnecessary overhead being imposed on the shoulders of the sectors on which we rely for the goal we all share to reduce unemployment in this country.