Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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279. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if his Department will release a timeline on the publishing of the Government's action plan on the promotion of collective bargaining; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40671/25]

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Article 4 of the EU Adequate Minimum Wage Directive, Promotion of Collective Bargaining on Wage Setting, aims to promote collective bargaining on wages in all Member States. The Directive requires Member States in which the collective bargaining coverage rate is less than 80%, as in Ireland, to provide “for a framework of enabling conditions for collective bargaining” and to publish an Action Plan to promote collective bargaining by the end of 2025.

The Programme for Government contains the commitment to finalise the action plan and I am committed to working towards this with the social partners.

My Department held a public consultation process to obtain the views of interested stakeholders across the wider enterprise and employment sectors on the possible content of the Action Plan. The consultation ran from 14 April to the 12 May 2025. The information received through the consultation process will help guide my Department in finalising the proposals, both legislative and administrative, which may be considered for inclusion in Ireland’s Action Plan.

An update on Collective Bargaining and Ireland’s Action Plan was provided to the social partners at the LEEF Subgroup on Employment and Enterprise meeting which I chaired on the 9 July 2025.

As I said Government have committed to producing an Action Plan by the end of the year and I have committed to this regardless of the outcome of the CJEU case.