Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to reiterate a couple of points that have just been made. On the Minister of State’s response, those existing rules around consultation do not apply to micro companies. There is no requirement for consultation regarding someone working in a company of, I think, fewer then nine or ten people. I stand to be corrected. That is the situation the employee I spoke to a couple of months back was in. He was in a state of shock that he had no say or right of being consulted. That does not even mean negotiation. There is a big difference between consultation and negotiation. He did not have negotiation rights or even consultation rights. That is why I think this amendment is useful.

During my work on the Council of Europe I often bring this up and other countries are shocked when they hear that Ireland is one of the few countries in Europe that does not have a right to collective bargaining. I cannot say how depressing it was to see the Tánaiste write to the EU Commission asking it not to make that directive binding and to ensure that there is no step forward in terms of collective bargaining of any kind for workers. For a country of our scale and development to still be denying a basic right to work is fundamentally flawed, wrong and immoral.

I saw the Commencement matter with the positive response from the Minister of State on the TRIPS waiver. I was delighted to see the response from the Leader of this House yesterday. She said she did not want to see our country standing with big pharma and profits as opposed to the needs of people. At the World Trade Organization meeting, we need Ireland’s voice to be raised. I fear it will not be. It looks like the Fine Gael element, in particular, will align itself with big pharma as opposed to where we need to stand, which is with the people of the world.