Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Section 87 provides for an amendment to the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 to bring it into line with the rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Schultz-Hoff line of cases regarding how time spent on sick leave should be treated for the purposes of the accrual of annual leave. It will allow workers who are on long-term sick leave to accrue and retain annual leave for up to 15 months from the end of the year in which it is accrued, thus bringing the Organisation of Working Time Act into line with the rulings of the Court of Justice of the EU. It is considered that the 15-month period strikes the right balance between respecting the entitlements of employees and minimising the cost to the Exchequer and employers while bringing the legislation into line with EU law. Amendments Nos. 134 to 136, inclusive, amend section 87 and are required to implement fully the rulings of the Court of Justice of the EU in the Schultz-Hoff line of cases. These amendments will provide that an employee who leaves employment and who has accrued annual leave entitlement will be entitled to payment in lieu of the leave not taken calculated on the same basis as if the employee had returned to work on the date of leaving the employment.

These amendments are being introduced on Committee Stage in the Seanad since it was not possible to have the text ready in time for Report Stage in the Dáil. We had always intended to include them. It was simply a question of getting the drafting ready.

Amendment No. 137 is in the name of Senator Norris. We recognise that the language proposed by the Senator is already in use in legislation. For example it appears in the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, the Employment Permits Act 2006 and, more recently, the Protected Disclosures Act 2014. The provisions on penalisation in those Acts, including threatening penalisation, were considered in detail in the specific context of those legislative instruments when they were being prepared and enacted. The language proposed is correct and in use. However, the purpose of the Workplace Relations Bill is only to provide for the streamlining of structures and procedures that will make the navigation of employment rights and associated compliance and enforcement systems far more user-friendly. If substantial changes to employment law had been intended to be effected by this Bill, those changes would have been highlighted at the time of the public consultation and people would have been afforded an opportunity to consider them. Substantial changes to employment rights legislation, such as those proposed by the Senator in this amendment, fall outside the scope of the Bill. That is not to say they cannot be addressed at a later stage. It is simply that this Bill is mainly about procedures and structures. We understand the wording is already used in other legislation. The wording is correct. It would have meant far more work at this stage on this Bill and we are not prepared to go back into it, because we want to get this moving along if we can. We are not going to accept the amendment at this stage.