Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I understand what Senator Bacik is saying and the issues she raises, which are very valid. They cannot, however, be accommodated in this legislation. The recommendation seeks to restrict the hiring practices of employers who want to access the TWSS, the EWSS or the special warehousing and interest provisions already contained in the Bill. It proposes that entry to such schemes would mean that employers would not be able to hire new workers into roles where lay offs have occurred, or hire new workers unless the work they are being hired to carry out has already been offered to increase the hours of short-time workers. These are stand-alone schemes designed to support a firm's viability. The matter falls outside the criteria relating to the Revenue Commissioners. The will administer the EWSS but they are not the people that the Houses of the Oireachtas want to adjudicate on employment rights. Those issues are for the Workplace Relations Commission and, ultimately, the Labour Court.

Section 28B (6)(ii) contains safeguards to specifically provide what Senator Bacik aims to do with recommendation No. 5. The section states that, other than for bona fide commercial reasons, an employer cannot access the EWSS if that employer has laid off a qualifying employee and replaced him or her with two or more qualifying employees who work fewer hours, with the aim of increasing the number of qualifying employees in order that the employer can get an increased subsidy payment. There are measures in place to ensure that employees cannot be laid off and other employees taken on. This is an industrial relations issue and asking Revenue to get involved with who has been hired or fired would actually prevent the scheme getting up and running as urgently as we want it to. The issues raised by Senator Bacik are totally valid but I do not believe we should ask the Revenue Commissioners to get into the middle of hiring or firing, or who has rights. This is more appropriately judged under the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court.