Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 57:

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I thank the Minister of State for her time in the Seanad this afternoon. I will speak to all the amendments together. I welcome the Bill but I want to express my disappointment at how it has been progressed through the Oireachtas. In the Joint Committee on Education and Skills we decided not to hold pre-legislative scrutiny sessions on this Bill on the understanding that stakeholder engagement would be held later in the process. Before the summer, we invited submissions from relevant stakeholders and based on those submissions we planned to invite particular stakeholders to a public stakeholder engagement session in the autumn. However, during the summer recess, when no one was here, the Bill was introduced to the Seanad, printed in the month of August and then Second Stage was taken, with no warning given to committee members, almost immediately after the summer on 10 October. The joint committee was then informed that, because the Bill was under active consideration by the Oireachtas, Standing Orders forbade us from holding a public stakeholder engagement session on it. As much as I would hope that this was accidental, the Minister’s own Department actually made a submission to the consultation, so I can only assume that it was fully aware the consultation was in progress. Surely it knew that the practical effect of its progression through the Oireachtas would be to circumvent the role of the joint committee.

Moreover, despite not holding a public session, we released a report with recommendations and a summary of the submissions. I note that not a single recommendation from that cross-party committee of politicians has been introduced by a Government amendment. This is even more inexcusable given that the whole reason this Bill exists and is being brought through the Oireachtas is that QQI was found to have exceeded its legal authority in a case before the High Court. That we would not thoroughly interrogate the provisions of this Bill after its predecessor was the subject of legal action is just not good enough.

I want to put on record that I am extremely disappointed with how the Minister of State has gone about this Bill. The wide array of the amendments tabled today shows that this Bill needs further scrutiny, further changes and further analysis of how its provisions will impact the relevant sectors. I have met with providers who will be affected by this Bill and who have no idea how it will impact on their businesses because the Minster of State's Department has done no outreach work on the impact of the reforms. Especially in light of the events over the weekend in respect of Grafton College, it could not be clearer to me that we needed to do proper and thorough stakeholder engagement. I am very sorry we were not able to do that.

All these amendments have been tabled with the intention of raising employment standards in the English language teaching sector. As the Minister of State will have been made aware through the work of Unite the Union and its organisers, the English language teaching, ELT, sector in Ireland is largely unregulated with poor employment standards and often terrible working conditions. I went into detail on the specific issues on Second Stage so I will not repeat them but they are serious and need to be dealt with in this legislation. The Minister of State has said that the authority should not be given responsibility for monitoring this area but that is simply not good enough. The closure of Grafton College over the weekend shows just how poorly regulated and in need of State intervention this sector is.

The amendments I have proposed simply seek to give the authority a role in assessing one more provision on its checklist when evaluating a provider's eligibility to operate with the international education mark. This provision relates to whether the provider is complying with employment law in respect of its English language teacher employees. If we are legislating for this new sign of internationally recognised high quality English language learning, mainly for international students, we should also be including provisions that will raise standards for the teachers teaching them. It is a simple ask and one that would strengthen the Bill.

In terms of the specific amendments, amendment No. 58 would add minimum employment standards for English language teachers to the code of practice issued by the authority and would have a similar practical effect to the Labour Party's amendment, which I also support. This amendment is particularly justifiable as the subsection above, which is on issues that will be addressed in the statutory code of practice, includes requirements in respect of the tax compliance of a provider. QQI may not be the Revenue Commissioners but, in setting up guidelines for the English language schools, it would be given a recognised role to play in monitoring and checking compliance with other areas of law outside its remit, in this case tax law. If that can be said for tax law, it is very easy to argue and accept that checking compliance with employment law could easily be added to the code of practice as well. Workers deserve the same level of regulation and compliance as is provided in respect of providers’ tax obligations. Amendment No. 63 would require the providers of the courses to demonstrate that they have procedures for complying fully with employment legislation before they could apply for the IEM. Amendment No. 64 would add compliance with relevant employment legislation to the criteria that the authority would take into consideration when determining an application for the IEM. Amendments Nos. 62 and 65 are technical amendments to address grammatical issues. They have the same policy intention as the previous amendments and add compliance with employ merit legislation to the IEM application process at different points.

The simple fact is that the schools are not complying with employment law. We need to give the authority some sort of stake in monitoring this. None of these amendments would impact on schools operating without the IEM. It just means that if schools want this very high standard mark of excellence, the students who are seeking to enrol in these courses can be comforted that those teaching them have their rights to fairness in the workplace fully vindicated.

The Labour Party amendment to this section is strong - perhaps even stronger than mine - because it applies to all staff rather than teachers alone. Therefore, I reserve the right to introduce a variant amendment on Report Stage to incorporate some of the language in the Labour Senators' amendment, for which I thank them. I support the Labour amendment and hope it will be accepted. I also reserve the right to table a Report Stage amendment on legal requirements regarding teachers and staff when a school folds suddenly, as was the case with Grafton College.

Amendment No. 66 takes a different approach. If the earlier more straightforward amendments are not accepted, we will have to push for the sort of explicit protections that are required for a provider who wishes to have the IEM in the terms of conditions they offer to English language teachers. It would create a requirement for certain amounts of fixed-term contracts to give teachers more certainty. It would prohibit bogus self-employment, and would require work done outside contact hours to be recognised, leave entitlements to be set out and accessible and the publication of information relating to pay scales. It would also prohibit the practice of automatically paying English language teachers more where English is their first language. I would prefer that the Government would accept our earlier amendments because amendment No. 66 represents a blunter means of achieving the same outcome. If we have to add a new explicit section on employment standards, then so be it.