Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is never an easy task as an Independent in opposition to get legislation all the way through the Houses. Even though it is not yet fully realised with regard to its implementation, this Bill is extremely significant in showing what can be done in the Seanad when working with Departments and finding common ground on things we need to change. I thank the Minister for that. When this issue was first raised, he and his officials began to engage quickly and carried out their own research, which thankfully backed up what I had been saying. Obviously, non-disclosure agreements, by their nature, are secret. Carrying out research to actually understand NDAs is a difficult task. I congratulate the Minister's office and officials for managing to take that research as far as we possibly could, given the climate of secrecy.

What I am also happy about is that, in talking to the Minister and hearing his contribution today, my Bill does not go far enough in some situations in incorporating the idea of NDAs being pre-emptive, for example, in contracts. It would be great, as we move forward, to be able to continue to tease out some of those issues to make sure the full extent of NDAs is captured in the Minister's legislation.

I acknowledge the work of Professor Julie Macfarlane. She was a law professor in University College Cork once upon a time. She is in Canada now and heads up a law school there. She was not subject to an NDA but she became involved in an NDA because, as an employer, she was expected to give a reference for somebody who she knew was being moved around because of sexual harassment. By breaking that and refusing to be complicit in it, her own work began in this area from a legal perspective. She and Seb McAteer, who was in my office at the time, were key in drafting the legislation as it currently stands. It is getting international recognition, as the Minister said, for being the strongest legislation in this area to date.A number of states in the United States are bringing forward legislation. There are Canadian provinces and Australian provinces. The UK recently passed an amendment to a piece of legislation that directly looks at universities. Thankfully ours is much wider than that and covers all employment law regardless of the sector because it is very cross-cutting and goes into every sector. It is not only a sectoral issue it is actually becoming a standard practice in the heads of legal professionals who just automatically write this stuff into contracts, severance agreements, non-disparagement agreements, and just present this as the done thing to do. Regardless of what sectors they show up in a massive culture change is needed within the legal profession itself. This conversation has gone a long way to being able to raise the awareness of their impact on many individuals in terms of the people who signed them here in Ireland.

I also acknowledge the work of Robert Somerville in my office, who has been with me for the past two years, to take it to the point we are at now. We had a very successful event last night where we flew Zelda Perkins over to have a conversation. She was the woman who broke the Harvey Weinstein NDA. Obviously that is a very extreme case but her work exploded the whole area of how often NDAs are used. It is not always as extreme as that but the work of Zelda Perkins and Professor Julie Macfarlane has been to highlight the systemic use of NDAs for a whole spectrum of issues and severity. Again, I thank my own office staff and Brian O'Flynn for helping me to continue to put a bit of energy behind this because when work takes a few years and other stuff drags you in different directions you need to make sure there are people who continue the work behind the scenes; I am very grateful for that.

I will finish with a few quotes. Obviously because of the secret nature of NDAs a lot of the testimony I have is anonymous so I wanted to finish by reminding everyone in this room why NDAs are so important and to give those people some element of a voice in this piece of legislation today. These are direct quotes from or about people in Ireland who have been impacted by NDAs:

Coming forward should not be as painful and should not carry as much risk for someone as it currently does.

It is unacceptable that workers would be forced to stay silent after being subject to this atrocious behaviour, especially when mandatory silence only serves to perpetuate the culture of secrecy that allows abusers to continue tormenting and abusing other workers.

NDAs are ubiquitous , particularly in the US and in places where US companies operate. Though they are not a uniquely American thing, the Catholic Church and many other institutions have used NDAs for years.

It puts you in a position where you cannot be honest in your personal relationships and you cannot be honest in your professional relationships. It is an extremely lonely, isolating place to be.

Who can you talk to about what happened to you? Nobody, they said. Well, lawyers. Not your spouse or your family? No. Would a therapist fall under this? I am not even sure.

NDAs can make it harder for us to learn about and therefore prevent actual harassment that is going to physically harm individuals, psychologically harm individuals. There is a psychological harm that results from agreeing to not tell your story, the story of your own life, and that psychological harm is not one that you would appreciate, probably, when you first signed that contract.

I would say that for women signing settlements and then signing an NDA, not only are they signing to be quiet, which is what the general public thinks in the majority of the cases, you are signing to never work in your chosen profession ever again.

She said dealing with the fallout of her time at the company had been as painful as grappling with the death of her mother years before. Being unable to discuss it with anyone made it uniquely difficult.

I am voiceless, I am terrified of the NDA that keeps me silent. The only winners were the barristers, solicitors, and managers who covered up. I was paid for my notice period but that was less than the legal fees I incurred. I feel I have lost my rights as a citizen. I cannot report their white collar crimes. I cannot resort to the adjudication. I cannot have justice for the discrimination that I endured because their access to limitless funds allowed them to purchase injustice.

I will finish by saying that as can be seen, when we have enforced silence, behind that silence there will always be a roar. The moment we begin to remove tools that are used to legally allow people to be silenced against their will or coerced into their silence, ultimately people will start to speak and people will start to push back. I hope this legislation and this work goes a far way to be able to give those people back their voice.