Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the Seanad. I note his statement: "Worker and employer stakeholders have played a critical role in assisting Government developing this clear and workable framework and I wish to acknowledge the huge contribution of the representatives of both sides of industry in this regard." The main purpose of this Bill is twofold. The first is to provide for the reintroduction of a mechanism for the registration of employment agreements between employers and trade unions governing remuneration and conditions of employment in individual enterprises, to provide for a new statutory framework for establishing minimum rates of remuneration and terms and conditions of employment for a specified type, class or group of workers, particularly in the context of transnational provision of services and promoting harmonious relations between workers. In effect, it is a framework to replace the former sectoral registered employment agreements. Second, the Bill will put in place the legislative amendments to the Industrials Relations Acts 2001 and 2004 required to give effect to the programme for Government commitment to reform the current law on an employee's right to engage in collective bargaining so as to ensure compliance by the State with recent judgments of the European Court of Human Rights.

Fianna Fáil welcomes this long-promised Bill. The proposals are broadly welcomed.The legislation strikes a balance between providing increased collective bargaining rights and anti-victimisation provisions for workers and maintaining the voluntarist approach to collective bargaining supported by employers. However, it is a damning indictment of this cynical and PR-obsessed Government - I do not like to describe it thus to the Minister of State, because he is one of the finer members of his party, but I cannot avoid doing so - that it took the plight of the courageous Dunnes Stores workers for Fine Gael and the Labour Party finally to agree on bringing forward this long-promised Bill.

The legislation aims to provide an improved framework for workers to seek to enhance their terms and conditions of employment where collective bargaining is not recognised by their employer and offer a replacement structure for the registered employment agreements system. The test for the new collective bargaining provisions in the Bill will be whether they are effective in resolving industrial disputes such as that at Dunnes Stores and facilitating all parties to engage with the industrial relations dispute machinery of the State. In particular, the legislation will stand or fall on the efficacy of the new proposals which allow a Labour Court determination in any industrial dispute to be subsequently enforced by the Circuit Court.

While I welcome the Bill, it comes too late for the 450 staff at the iconic Clerys outlet who were informed on 12 June that it was closing with immediate effect. The store is situated in the heart of our main city, on O'Connell Street, and has witnessed a great deal in almost 200 years of trading. It sits directly across from the GPO, where men died for our country during one of the most significant events in Irish history, and in close proximity to the statue commemorating James Larkin. Next year we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising. It is ironic, if not positively Shakespearian, that the Clerys store where workers were treated so brutally should be in direct view of the GPO, where the events that took place 100 years ago will be celebrated next year. The manner in which the workers were told they were losing their jobs was callous and marks a new low in management-employee relations in Ireland. There was a complete absence of engagement with industrial relations channels and no attempt to open a social dialogue between workers and management. It is vital that company law provisions are re-examined to legislate for circumstances such as those in which the Clerys workers found themselves on 12 June.

Fianna Fáil welcomes the Bill before us today, which, as I said, will strengthen laws to protect and promote workers' rights, particularly those on low pay. We hope it will provide much-needed certainty for both workers and employers in respect of collective bargaining, enhancement of anti-victimisation provisions and an operable replacement structure for registered employment agreements. The provisions maintain the voluntarist approach, which means it will not be mandatory for employers to enter into collective bargaining. Employers have claimed that Ireland's voluntarist approach is key to our ability to attract foreign investment. I was a member of a national women's committee in the 1970s as representative of the Federated Workers Union of Ireland. In my heart and soul, I am a supporter of trade unions. However, there is no denying that foreign investors generally do not want to deal with trade unions, and that is a choice which remains open to them. When he was still writing for The Irish Times, Dan O'Brien observed in a piece which dealt with promoting and encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit in Ireland:

If there is a killer fact that illustrates the inherent weakness of indigenous business it is that Irish companies account for a mere 10 percent of the economy's exports. It is unique among OECD economies for indigenous companies to export so little. Without the foreign-owned sector, Ireland would be the most closed economy in the developed world and would almost certainly be among the poorest countries in Western Europe.

I have a great deal more to say but the Leas-Chathaoirleach has indicated that my time is up. I am proud to say that the company I co-founded, Lir Chocolates, is expanding its export business. Ireland is a very small market, with only 4.5 million people, and it is vital that indigenous companies drive efforts to increase their exports. I wish the Minister of State success in all the important work he has to do.