Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

If I may I will provide some context to this Bill. As some Senators will be aware, a number of technical amendments were required to be made after the passage of the Workplace Relations Act. It was complex legislation and some issues came to our attention that required to be dealt with. It is proposed that they be accommodated in this Bill. As colleagues will know, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation has been implementing a programme of reform of the State's employment rights and industrial relations procedures and institutions since 2012. His aim is to establish a world-class workplace relations service and employment rights framework by streamlining the existing mechanisms and establishing a simpler structure while building upon the recognised strengths of current systems. The effect of the complex Workplace Relations Act, when commenced, will be to replace the five workplace relations bodies with a simplified two-tier structure and establish new structures for the resolution and adjudication of complaints and disputes across the corpus of employment rights and equality legislation.

As a result of the introduction of these new structures, it has been necessary to make consequential amendments to 24 primary Acts, 34 specified Parts or sections and numerous statutory instruments. As part of this Bill's complex drafting process, it was determined that a number of technical and drafting amendments would be necessary to ensure the smooth running of the new structures. This became clear when certain technical and legal elements were worked through. Consequently, it is essential that these amendments be effected before the commencement of the legislation and the establishment of the new structures on 1 October. I accept that this is an imperfect way of doing business, but we were left with no alternative and we want to ensure that the new workplace relations operations work in the way they are intended to.

I will outline in broad strokes the amendments that were required to be made to the Workplace Relations Act and employment rights and equality enactments. Of a technical and drafting nature, they were required to ensure that the transitional arrangements on new adjudication and redress structures arising from the establishment of the new simplified two-tier adjudication structures were legally robust. As a result, it was necessary to amend sections 76, 80, 81, 83 and 84. These amendments to the Act will result in a requirement to make consequential amendments to the Redundancy Payments Act 1967, the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, the Protection of Employees (Employers' Insolvency) Act 1984, the Employment Equality Act 1998, the Equal Status Act 2000 and the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994.

Also required were amendments of a technical and drafting nature to sections 1, 2, 28, 40, 41, 53 and 74 and Schedules 3 and 4 of the Workplace Relations Act, and amendments to introduce a number of additional provisions to the Act to provide for a range of technical and transitional issues consequential on the transfer of functions from the director of the Equality Tribunal to the director of the workplace relations commission, WRC. These amendments provide, for example, for the transfer of property rights and liabilities that were vested in the director of the Equality Tribunal to the director of the WRC upon the commencement of sections 83 and 84 of the Workplace Relations Act. An amendment to the Freedom of Information Act 2014 has also been necessary to ensure that the exemption from the freedom of information legislation that currently applies to the Equality Tribunal, in so far as it relates to the tribunal's mediation functions, will be extended to the WRC upon commencement of the Workplace Relations Act. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has agreed to the extension of the exemption to ensure that it covers records of the WRC's mediation service in so far as it applies to the service's functions in the resolution of complaints and disputes on a voluntary basis under employment and equality enactments.

This Bill was initiated in the Seanad on 11 May and is completing its passage through the Houses. I introduced these amendments to the Workplace Relations Act on Report Stage of this Bill in the Dáil on 9 July. All of the proposed Government amendments to the Act and the related amendments to other employment and equality enactments were passed by the Dáil on 9 July. We are here to discuss and, with the support of colleagues, approve these amendments. They are included in a new Part 3, entitled "Workplace Relations". Would the House like me to speak on all of the amendments? There are a considerable number.