Katherine Zappone (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 8:

In page 4, to delete lines 30 to 33 and substitute the following:“(c) The Minister, after consultation with the Minister for Education and Skills, and the Minister for Health, will issue guidelines to the institutions identified within this Act, to define and publish their ethos, and may issue further directions or guidelines for the purpose of giving effect to paragraph (b).”.

The Minister of State has made clear he will be taking out this section of the Bill but I will proceed. The Bill states: "The Minister, after consultation with the Minister for Education and Skills, and the Minister for Health, may issue directions or guidelines for the purpose of giving effect to paragraph (b)." The paragraph in question adds restrictions and protections for employees. My amendment is to substitute the word "will" for "may". I will explain why I propose stating that, despite the fact that the Minister said the word "may" could be unsafe and the courts could find it an unlawful delegation of authority on the part of the Oireachtas.

It would be most helpful to issue guidelines to institutions to give their religious ethos so that it would be much easier for employees to determine whether they were in tune with it and how they would conduct themselves in the workplace. My amendment would make things clear, it would reduce the chill factor and it would lend sufficient clarity to the law. I am aware of the fact that the Supreme Court acknowledged that the term "ethos" in the Employment Equality Bill 1997 was vague and it was also a contentious issue in the Oireachtas debates on the Bill. Nevertheless, I wonder why it would be so difficult for religious institutions to publish their ethos.

When this issue was debated in the past, the then Senator Brendan Ryan asked:

Who undermines the ethos of an institution? Is it the eminent secondary school teacher who owns 15 slum dwellings in a small town and rips off the poor? Or is it the person living with someone who is not their spouse? I know which has been sacked and which has not been sacked.

He was, of course, referring to the Eileen Flynn case. I put forward this amendment to change things to bring clarity to how employees are to behave and conduct themselves in the workplace. It would mean that, should they be discriminated against by an institution on account of its religious ethos, there would be at least three or four tests which they would have to pass in court to ensure their actions were legitimate and just.