Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for attending the House today. He is always very welcome.

The WRC and the Labour Court are to be fully commended. They are fantastic bodies and under their previous guises as the Labour Relations Commission have done a great job and are certainly there as the barrier towards stopping poor employment practices and outing the abuse of employees. I welcome the decision of the Supreme Court and our quick response to it. This emboldens, widens the scope of and strengthens the powers of the WRC. The fact that evidence will now need to be given on oath and heard in public will do an even greater service to the operations of the WRC.

It has been said - I have often quoted it in submissions over the years and it has been said in the High Court - that next to losing one's liberty the worst thing that can happen to one is to lose one's job because of all of the financial consequences that flow from and are dependent on our income. The idea now is that once somebody attends before the WRC and has to go through the unfair dismissals procedure, evidence needs to be on oath and in public.My experience of it, from both an employer's and an employee's point of view, suggests that the same repeat offenders of employers are there again and again. There are some big names that should just have bunk beds in the corner, as I have said before in the Chamber, because they are repeatedly in there. There is never a day when one goes there that the same name is not on the screen. That pattern and ability to report and name names will be a very important feature. In my view, it is regrettable that it was not included from the very beginning when the Workplace Relations Commission Act 2015 was introduced.

From an employee's point of view, I can understand the sensitivities and the nervousness. I have sat beside people, in both instructed and pro bonocases, and I appreciate the fear of the process. Employment law can be underestimated as to how complex at times it can be. While the WRC is meant to be accessible, it requires legal assistance or experienced union personnel, and I have been there as both over the years. There can be sensitive content on the part of the employee and, therefore, being able to make a submission to have the matter anonymised or in private will be important. It is important also that the adjudicator can operate in his or her own regard.

There are solicitors practising in the country who submit vexatious, spurious claims and throw the sink at it on behalf of a person making a rather vague claim. In one instance, I was briefed for 147 claims. Timesheets and everything else could be produced, but it was vexatious. There are repeat offenders among legal practitioners as well who are guilty of that, and this may expose them too.

One feature that needs to be addressed relates to the lack of a pre-determination of a prima facie case and the lack of having preliminary matters dealt with before hearing the matter in full. That lends itself to clogging up the system. People can sit there and argue a preliminary matter that there is no jurisdiction, and then still have to go through the case just in case it is found that there is jurisdiction. Something along the lines of the Master's court for the High Court, or the county registrar for the Circuit Court, could be put in place and unclog the system in order that there would be a better system for adjudicating whether a case should go to hearing. Not everything should go to hearing, given that some cases either should not be defended because they are so blatant and they should go to hearing, while some cases do not even reach the bar of prima facie.

The removal of adjudicators is, I hope, very rare. I have had the experience of the other side handing a birthday card to the adjudicator. Fortunately, I was robust enough to argue it, but if that person had been there on his or her own, without counsel or a representative, he or she would not necessarily have known to handle such a matter. It is to be applauded that there is this mechanism for complaint and transparency.

I commend the legislation.