Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 73: To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the discussions that he has had with regard to the transposition of the temporary agency workers directive. [35959/11]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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The EU Directive on Temporary Agency Workers (2008/14/EC) is due to be transposed into Irish law by 5 December 2011. A central aim of the Directive is to ensure protection of temporary agency workers by applying the principle of equal treatment in their basic working and employment conditions. My Department initiated a public consultation on the national transposition of the Directive in October 2010. Observations were provided by a number of stakeholders and interested parties. As part of the consultation process a number of follow-up bilateral meetings were held between my Department and a number of respondents to further elaborate on positions. This informed the preparation of draft legislation by my Department.

Government approval for the draft Scheme of a Bill to give effect to the EU Directive in Irish law has been obtained and the Office of Parliamentary Counsel is proceeding with urgency to draft the Bill. I expect that the Bill will be published in early December 2011.

In tandem with the preparation of the necessary legislation to give effect to the Directive, my Department has been engaged in discussions with the national social partners, IBEC and ICTU, with the objective of facilitating agreement on the conclusion of a "Framework Agreement" under the terms of a derogation provided under Article 5.4 of the Directive. This would allow for a "qualifying period" before the principle of equal treatment would apply to agency workers in Ireland and would place us in a similar situation to that of the UK and Northern Ireland which has already obtained agreement on a 12-week qualifying period. In the absence of a "Framework Agreement" the default position is that equal treatment will apply from day 1 of the assignment of the agency worker to the hirer undertaking.

I met with IBEC and ICTU on 31st August, 2011 to facilitate discussions with the objective of concluding a framework agreement allowing for a qualifying period. At that time, I set in motion a series of bilateral discussions between officials of my Department and the national social partners to tease out the prospects for securing agreement and, while those discussions are ongoing, to date, no agreement has been reached on this issue.

Given the imminence of the date on which the Directive comes into effect i.e. 5 December 2011, there are considerable time pressures to conclude these discussions. In light of the extremely challenging labour market conditions with high unemployment and the need to do all in our power to sustain and grow employment, it is my sincere hope that agreement can be achieved between both sides. This would allow necessary leeway in terms of labour market flexibility and ensure that the labour market conditions in this jurisdiction align with those in Northern Ireland and in the UK.