Written answers

Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation

Legislative Programme

9:00 pm

Photo of Willie O'DeaWillie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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Question 327: To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he is satisfied item 1.12 of the jobs action plan has been implemented; when he expects legislation reforming wage setting mechanisms to pass; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20033/12]

Photo of Richard BrutonRichard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Section 1.12 of the Action Plans for Jobs provides for a commitment to enact legislation to reform wage setting mechanisms.

To this end, the Industrial Relations (Amendment) (No.3) Bill 2011 was published on 22 December 2011. The Bill has completed Second Stage in the Dáil and is currently awaiting Committee Stage.

The main purpose of the Bill is to implement the commitment in the Programme for Government to reform the Joint Labour Committee system. The reform of the legal framework for underpinning this system is aimed at increasing employers' ability to retain and employ workers, particularly in sectors hard hit by the prevailing economic circumstances and to facilitate necessary cross-sector adjustment.

In addition, the Bill provides for the more comprehensive measures required to strengthen the legal framework for the EROs and Registered Employment Agreement sectoral wage setting mechanisms, under the Industrial Relations Acts 1946 to 2004, in the light of deficiencies in the original legislation identified in the John Grace Fried Chicken case.

The fact that the process of making EROs was found by the High Court to be unconstitutional, together with the identified lack of adequate Oireachtas scrutiny of this process, only underscores some of the main features of the recommendations for reform that were put forward by the Duffy/ Walsh report.

The commissioning of the independent review of the ERO and REA systems was one of the undertakings given by the last Government in the context of the EU and IMF-supported financial assistance programme for Ireland.

When enacted, this Bill, will implement the programme of reforms to the JLC/REA systems agreed by Government in July 2011. It will radically overhaul the system so as to make it fairer and more responsive to changing economic circumstances and labour market conditions. It will also reinstate a robust system of protection for workers in these sectors in the aftermath of the High Court ruling in the John Grace Fried Chicken case.

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