Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Question 113: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if a regulatory impact assessment was carried out with respect to the new regulatory provision in the Employment Law Compliance Bill; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13745/08]

Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Employment Law Compliance Bill is designed to secure better compliance with employment legislation in accordance with commitments in "Towards 2016", the national Social Partnership Agreement. Through that social partnership process, employer and employee representatives have been fully apprised at all stages of the issues to be legislated for and the likely impacts of the new legislation. In light of this, a screening Regulatory Impact Analysis was prepared, which in turn was summarised in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum published with the Bill.

In summary, the Bill is intended to benefit low-paid and other vulnerable employees in particular, by securing vindication of their employment-related rights. This will have clear benefits in terms of alleviating poverty and preventing exploitation and distortion of competition from non-compliance with employment legislation, and generally improving relations in the workplace.

It is not envisaged that the Bill will give rise to significant extra costs for responsible employers generally in terms of record-keeping, etc. requirements to be met. It is expected that only those employers who are non-compliant with employment legislation will have to incur additional expenditure to meet requirements, or face substantial interest and other penalties if they do not do so.