I thank the Senators for their contributions and for tabling amendments, which are proposed in good faith. I accept we had a discussion in this House and in the Dáil earlier in the week on the issue of public versus private proceedings. I understand the concerns about that but we have a duty to respect the Supreme Court decision, and to implement legislation as best we can to reflect it, while getting the balance right. I believe we are doing that. Discretion is provided for in the Bill and it is important to do th…

For the purposes of today's discussions, because I am conscious that not everybody was in the room when we discussed during the week, I will set out exactly what is in section 4, as well as the amendments being put forward. Section 4 contains an amendment of section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015, in respect of the provision in section 41(13) of that Act. It currently provides that "Proceedings under this section before an adjudication officer shall be conducted otherwise than in public". The court held, in…

I thank Senator Black for moving the amendment on behalf of Senator Higgins. I will not be able to accept it because we have already allowed for what it proposes in legislation. We got into this in detail earlier in the week although I am conscious that not everybody could be here. I also discussed it with colleagues in the Dáil. I gave a strong commitment on the proposed review. The amendment being put forward relates to a provision we inserted into the draft Bill following a positive and productive cross-party en…

I thank both Senators, and Senator Seery Kearney in particular for making the case again. The Bill will assist people in coming forward. We have to recognise that it is okay to pursue your rights. It is not something that should be hidden away. Employers should see it as a positive. If, in the future, an employer reacts negatively to employees pursuing their rights, perhaps those employees might not want to work with that employer. You have to look at it that way as well. Again, the tone of the debate over these co…

I thank all Members for their co-operation in helping us to bring this legislation through the Houses quite quickly. I understand that we requested not to avail of pre-legislative scrutiny in this case. In general, we should always do pre-legislative scrutiny if we possibly can but all the Members here, from all parties, recognised the urgency and importance of getting this done as quickly as possible. I thank everyone for their assistance in doing that. I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach and the offices of both House…

On behalf of the Minister, Deputy Coveney, I thank Deputy Ó Murchú for raising this issue. As the House will be aware, the United States has maintained a comprehensive economic embargo on Cuba since 1962, which prevents US businesses or businesses with commercial activities in the US from trading with Cuban interests. Ireland's position on this embargo is long-standing and clear. Fundamentally, the embargo serves no constructive purpose and its lifting would facilitate an opening of Cuba's economy to the benefit of…

I again thank Deputy Ó Murchú for his contribution and I welcome the opportunity to speak again on the issue. I acknowledge the severe impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on Cuba, not least in leading to a collapse, essentially, of the international tourism industry on which the Cuban economy is hugely dependent. I note the Cuban authorities managed to contain the initial outbreak of Covid-19 very well but in recent weeks, as so many other countries have experienced, they are faced with rising case numbers and dif…

I am pleased to introduce the Bill for the consideration of the House. I propose, first, to summarise the background and context of the Bill, the basic aim of which is to ensure the matters of immediate concern identified by the Supreme Court in its majority decision in the Zalewski case are immediately remedied in statute. I will then describe the purpose and reasoning behind each section of the Bill. On 6 April this year, the majority judgment of the Supreme Court in the Zalewski case overturned the judgment of t…

I thank all the Senators for their contributions and for assisting us with having a timely debate on the Bill and progressing it this week in order that we can, I hope, get it finalised. We will be back in the House on Thursday or Friday to deal with any amendments they might wish to put forward. Some amendments were put forward in the other House. We dealt with them, went through them and explained the rationale behind them. Hopefully, we can do the same and reach agreement in this House and progress the legislati…

I thank Deputy O'Reilly for tabling these amendments. I understand what she is trying to achieve. I will try to give her words of comfort. We believe that most of what she is asking for is already in the legislation. I will outline the reasons for that belief. I understand the Deputy's concerns but I remind the House that this is a two-way street and that employers might not want their situations discussed in public either. That might encourage them to enter into mediation or to rectify the situation, so this works…

As everyone knows, I will talk to anybody, so in any review I have no hesitation in talking to anyone after 12 months, especially those who have been affected by any decision we make here. My officials are the same because in drafting the legislation we have engaged directly with committee members as well as the relevant unions and people involved in this day to day. We are very open on this. I cannot accept the amendment but I do not oppose it because we believe it is already in the legislation. We are all at one …

I confirm that I am speaking on behalf of my Department. My officials are very much disposed towards engaging with everybody on this issue because they want justice to be administered properly and people's rights to be vindicated. We have a concern with the term "chilling effect" being used all the time because we want to encourage people to use the WRC, not to be afraid to use it and the legislation allows for that. We cannot bring forward a statutory provision that expressly anticipates victimisation or penalisat…

I move: "That the Bill be read a second Time". It is good to be back in the Dáil Chamber. Hopefully, it will not be too long before we get back here permanently. I am pleased to introduce the Workplace Relations (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2021 for the consideration of the House. I propose, in the first instance, to summarise the background to and context of the Bill, the basic aim of which is to ensure that the matters of immediate concern identified by the Supreme Court in its majority decision in the Zalewsk…

I thank all the Members for their contributions today. I thank the Deputies for their general support of the Bill, their recognition of the urgency to pass it and their co-operation in that regard. Some of the issues raised probably are not the most directly urgent in respect of the Supreme Court judgment but I will certainly follow up on them. I will respond to Members in writing. Deputy Pringle was the second Deputy to raise the issue of access to legal representation for employees in cases that are appealed to t…

I move amendment No. 1: To delete all words after “That” and substitute the following: “Dáil Éireann acknowledges and resolves that the Industrial Relations (Provisions in Respect of Pension Entitlements of Retired Workers) Bill 2021 be deemed to be read a second time this day 12 months, to allow for consultation between the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the Minister for Social Protection and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, with unions and employers and the Industrial Relations bodi…

I thank all the contributors to the debate. I am sorry I had to step out for some of it. I did not get to hear all the speeches but I did hear the ones at the start. I have an understanding of what the Deputies are trying to achieve with the legislation and I accept that it is a genuine effort. Others made speeches that covered a wide range of areas but did not focus on the legislation or the situation that as a Government we are trying to deal with. That is why we have asked for time in the amendment to consider t…

I thank the Deputies for raising this important topic here tonight. It featured heavily in last year's election, but even before that because it was something that was debated quite a lot in the Houses, probably since 2007 or 2008. At that stage we needed to have a national conversation about it, which probably did not happen. It was not led by anybody at that stage but it is important that we are having this debate tonight and that the Pensions Commission is doing its work, which is leading the national conversati…

I did not interrupt anybody. In any discussion on pensions, we need to look at one simple, inescapable fact, namely, that people are living longer. We have to accept that, plan for that and budget for that, and make sure the resources are in place for the lifetime of the pension. In 1971, the average life expectancy was 71 and, thankfully, by 2016, that had risen to 81. A person who reached 65 years of age in 1971 could expect to live to the age of 77 and, in 2016, that had increased to about 84. That is a positive…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. She will have to forgive me because I only had notice she was going to raise bogus self-employment in the construction sector so I have no data or information on local authorities contracts. That was not mentioned in any clarification to us. I am happy to engage with her on that but I will have to speak more generally because that was all that was flagged to us by the Deputy. I will speak mainly on behalf of the Department of Social Protection, which has most of the enforc…

I would love to engage in more detail with the Deputy specifically on local authorities, but for whatever reason the reference was left out of the text as it appeared in the list of Topical Issue matters so I cannot address it. I will certainly gather any information she wants on that space as well. There are agencies with responsibility for this - principally, Revenue, the Department of Social Protection and the WRC, which have specific units to deal with the issue. They work with anybody who issues State contract…