Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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19. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her plans to make a sectoral employment order for teachers and employees in the English as a foreign language sector; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30476/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act of 2015 provides for a new statutory framework – Sectoral Employment Orders - for establishing minimum rates of remuneration and other terms and conditions of employment for a specified class, type or group of workers.  This is in effect a framework to replace the former sectoral Registered Employment Agreement (REA) system which was found to be unconstitutional in 2013 in McGowan - v – The Labour Court. 

The new framework sets down 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 remuneration and pension and sick pay entitlements of workers in a particular sector and, if it deems it appropriate, make a recommendation to myself as Minister on the matter. If I am satisfied that the process provided for in the 2015 Act has been complied with by the Labour Court, I can then make the Order. Where such an order is made it is known as a Sectoral Employment Order (SEO), will be binding across the sector to which it relates, and will be enforceable by the Workplace Relations Commission.

To-date five applications for SEOs have been made to the Labour Court – one was withdrawn and one was rejected. The remaining three are being considered by the Labour Court.  I am informed that no application has been made on behalf of workers or employers in the teaching English as a foreign language Sector.