Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This section aims to amend the Competition Act 2002 to establish rights for self-employed individuals to be represented by a trade union for the purposes of collective bargaining and price-setting. In introducing the Bill Senator Ivana Bacik highlighted the need for protection of vulnerable self-employed workers such as actors. The principle behind wanting to protect vulnerable self-employed workers is clear and something on which I think we all agree. However, the Government believes section 2, as drafted, goes far beyond the stated policy objective of the Bill of protecting vulnerable self-employed workers. In general, EU law confirms that self-employed workers are covered by competition law. However, there are also European Court judgments that certain specific categories such as false self-employed workers may not be covered by competition law and special attention will be paid to such self-employed and fully dependent self-employed workers in the proposed amendments. To this end, while not opposing the Bill's underlying aim, the Government cannot agree to section 2, as drafted. It is thus its intention to introduce amendments to the section on Report Stage. The amendments will address the policy objectives of the Bill in a more targeted way consistent with Irish and EU competition law.