Seanad debates

Thursday, 12 July 2012

Industrial Relations (Amendment)(No. 3) Bill 2011: Committee Stage (Resumed)

 

2:00 pm

Photo of Richard BrutonRichard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

This matter was debated in the other House. One needs to recognise the limited nature of the review we are talking about. The purpose of the review is made clear in the proposed new section 41A(4), which is about the existence of the joint labour committee rather than about the agreement. The proposed section provides that following a review, the Labour Court can decide to maintain the joint labour committee in its current form, or to amalgamate it with another committee if that would be more efficient. If the court finds nothing other than brushes and brooms in the committee - if nobody is being regulated in the sector - it can decide to change the committee's establishment order. This mechanism is not designed to review what is in the order, such as the fairness or otherwise of the wages, but to look at whether a joint labour committee is still relevant to the sector it is purporting to oversee. The list of factors to which the court shall have regard is as it is because it is confined to factors that might test whether the sector in question is still relevant, such as whether people are still working in it. The requirements in question are set out in the proposed section 41A(3). The issue the Senator is raising is about the policies and principles that would underpin an order and that is why all of that is back in where the order is being made. He is importing one of the criteria from the order and putting it into the review of the structure of the committees but it is not relevant to what the court is looking at in this section.

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