David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To be fair the Minister has misrepresented the point I made. If he listened to what I said it was very clear we do not expect employers, and it would be unreasonable to do so, to put on notice or make available every piece of legislation that would impact on workers and workers' rights. The third element of the amendment is to have the contact details of the workplace relations service available. This is not an onerous responsibility to put on employers. With regard to the complaints procedures concerning entitlements under employment legislation, the amendment could be tidied up to state the pieces of legislation are simply listed rather than having to detail all of the legislation. It could be the same with regard to entitlements under employment legislation either generally or by reference to particular enactments or pieces of legislation.

Perhaps because of how the amendment is worded the Minister may be of the view we are looking for employers to place on notice huge amounts of information and pieces of legislation, which is not the purpose. It is to provide limited but important information that employees should have. The amendment seeks to strengthen employees' rights and make employers responsible for ensuring they make employees aware of their rights.

I will withdraw the amendment and look at the wording and come back with something a bit tighter on Report Stage. I ask the Minister to take on board the point I am making, namely, to provide limited but important information about employment rights legislation, particularly about the workplace relations service, which is what we are seeking to do. If the Minister wants the legislation to be effective and wants employees to know the services available, how they can make a complaint and to whom they should make it, why is it unreasonable to suggest an employer should have to make this information available to employees? I ask the Minister to reconsider this, not today because he is not minded to accept the amendment, but perhaps he might look at the wording and come back on Report Stage.