Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is not about mistrusting the Minister's word.As I said, we never know the landscape and how things will change. Of course I trust the Minister's word but I just do not know what will come after that if the Minister is not there. It is not about trusting the Minister; it is just how things are.

We often have in-built reviews and reports in legislation. It is not something new or unusual. Just as the Minister cannot promise us that she will come back next week with the amendment, she also cannot say that she will write to the Workplace Relations Commission and have a test case because she does not know if such a case will come forward for various reasons. It is all very vague and in the hope that we can find someone to take a test case. However, that will not be necessary if we put in the legislation that there will be a review process, as there is in many other items of legislation. I do not ask the Minister to agree to the amendment now. She can look at other legislation with a similar provision built into it in order that she can see it is not unusual for such a measure to be in primary legislation.