Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not intend to speak on every single section, when it is not required. It is important to pick up on some of the points the Minister has just made. I thank him and his officials. Sometimes when you bring legislation and a Department says it will look at it or a Minister says he or she will look at it. you hope and want to believe that will happen. I have to say that the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and his officials acted very swiftly on carrying out that research, which has been very beneficial, not only to me in the progression of this Bill and our opening up the area of understanding NDAs in Ireland but also as part of a global message. I informed the Minister a few weeks ago that there are now some Canadian provinces that have introduced the Irish legislation before us. We are having an impact with this very important conversation we are having.

The initial research that has been done on non-disclosure agreements and their use of Ireland is just the beginning of being able to unearth the level to which NDAs are used here in Ireland. What also comes out through our own research that ran in parallel with the Minister's, because we continued meeting with people who are affected by NDAs, is that hybrids of NDAs have become prevalent. There are some classic NDAs used in instances of business and trades which should be protected, but what has now happened is that we see severance agreements that look plain and simple on the surface, but very significant NDA clauses are contained within other such types of agreements, such as compromise and confidentiality agreements. The clauses are not very obvious to the eye as a classic NDA.

I know the Minister intends to bring his own policies forward on this, which I hope we can also inform. I thank the Minister and I am open to working with officials on all the sections between now and Report Stage, rather than waiting to come back to Report Stage, whenever that happens. If the Minister gets out there first in terms of bringing his own policies and, potentially, his own legislation and my legislation were not needed, that would also be welcome.