Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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706. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if she will return funding to the electrical contractors following the new registered employment agreements (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35175/16]

Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Deputy, you will be aware that a High Court challenge to the validity of the Electrical Contracting Registered Employment Agreement (REA), as well as the constitutionality of the Industrial Relations Act 1946, the legislation underpinning the REA system, was upheld in the High Court and appealed to the Supreme Court.

In its judgment delivered in May 2013, (in McGowan and others v The Labour Court, Ireland and the Attorney General), the Supreme Court held that Part III of the Industrial Relations Act 1946 was invalid having regard to Article 15.2.1 of the Constitution.

The effect of that decision was to invalidate the registration of employment agreements previously registered under Part III of the 1946 Act. In consequence the Labour Court no longer had jurisdiction to enforce, interpret or otherwise apply these agreements.

Existing contractual rights of workers in sectors covered by REAs were unaffected by the ruling. Contractual rights can be altered only by agreement between the parties involved.

However, the striking down of the REAs meant that new employees into the Sectors previously covered by REAs could be hired at any rate agreeable between workers and their employers, subject only to the provisions of the National Minimum Wage Acts.

Legal advice provided following the Supreme Court judgment indicates that while the decision had immediate effect on REAs registered pursuant to the 1946 Act it did not mean for example that monies paid by employers to employees pursuant to those REAs having been incorporated into contracts of employment could be recouped. It should be recalled that the monies involved relate to wages paid by employers to their own employees.

The Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2015 provides a replacement for Registered Employment Agreements in individual enterprises and a new mechanism whereby pay and pension and sick pay provisions in a particular sector can be established and enforced.

This new framework contains a mechanism whereby, at the request, separately or jointly from organisations substantially representative of employers and/or of workers, the Labour Court can initiate a review of the pay and pension and sick pay entitlements of workers in a particular sector and, if it deems it appropriate, make a recommendation to the Minister on the matter, who in turn, if satisfied that the process provided in the new legislation for the Labour Court to follow has been complied with, shall make the Order. Such an Order will be binding across the sector to which it relates and will be enforceable by the Workplace Relations Commission.

Since the Act came into effect on 1 August 2015, two such applications have been made to the Labour Court, one of which was from the TEEU and which was subsequently withdrawn.