The Tánaiste has outlined the difficulties. I am well aware of the difficulties regarding sectoral employment orders, registered employment agreements and employment regulation orders. As the Tánaiste said, they are open to legal action and such actions have been taken on a number of occasions. In the intervening time, what protections does an electrical worker who is due to start work tomorrow or the next day have for his or her basic minimum rights and entitlements now that such workers are no longer set by or co…

This question is a fairly simple one. It is to ask the Minister if he will implement the legislative measures to prevent tactical insolvencies and ensure that workers are protected in insolvency situations. The latest of quite a number of cases of this nature concerns the Debenhams workers, but there has been a litany of cases. Every time this comes up, whoever is in government says something needs to be done, someone should do something, this cannot be allowed to happen again and when it happens again they say the…

The workers in Debenhams are on strike, they have balloted for industrial action. They are not on the picket line because they want to be there, they are on the picket line because they are literally in the last-chance saloon. They have got no option. They have nothing, they have lost their jobs. If one talks to these men and women, some have 20, 30 or 34 years of service to the company. Between them, they have given hundreds of years of loyal service to a company that has simply left them, dumped them. The Tánaist…

The Company Law Review Group issued a report in 2017. It outlines again the need for changes and outlines exactly what needs to be done. There is absolutely no dearth of information about what needs to be done and what would be the right thing to do. Everybody knows this. All that they are waiting on is the political will to act on it and that is why I am imploring the Minister to meet with the Debenhams workers and I welcome the fact that he will consider that. Their trade union has written to him, I think the let…

This is a fairly simple straightforward request and the Tánaiste can just say "Yes" and we will not need a back and forth. It is simply to ensure that where a worker contracts an illness in the workplace, that illness being Covid-19, that it is notifiable to the Health and Safety Authority, which can examine the case to determine how the person got it. I am a member of the Covid-19 response committee and I have heard from people representing workers in high-risk sectors, such as meat plants, and healthcare workers …

I thank the Minister of State. Will representatives of workers be involved in the review? I heard the Minister of State list the stakeholders but I did not hear worker representatives on it. If they are not involved in the review, I urge the Minister of State as a matter of priority to ensure they are. I note the Minister of State's concern for workers with regard to any responsibility that might be placed on them but their representative body, and a fine representative body it is too, the Irish Congress of Trade U…

On 11 June, the European Parliament took a decision to include Covid-19 in the definition of biological hazard as encompassed by the biological hazards directive. It would seem, therefore, that the decision has already been taken at European level. It is a very simple request - that the Minister of State make the necessary amendment to regulation 224 of the safety, health and welfare at work general application, amendment, regulations. He has the power to do it. I understand and respect that he will wait for the re…

This is another fairly straightforward question. While I do not imagine for a minute that the answer will be easy or straightforward, it is something that should be investigated by the Department and should form part of the discussions around both the July stimulus and other measures as we move forward. As the Minister said, this is only the first foray and then there will be more measures announced in October. As we move forward, we want assurances from him that workers will be protected in the same way as he is g…

Earlier, when we were discussing the striking down by the courts of the sectoral employment order, SEO, the Tánaiste confirmed that those who were engaged on Government contracts would honour the terms of the SEO. We know that the Government knows how to respect workers' rights. The question is whether it is going to use the power it has to enforce them. I ask the Minister of State to imagine for a moment that he is a worker with an outstanding award from the Labour Court. Such awards are rarely legally binding and…

I remind the Minister of State of the words of the Prime Minister of New Zealand. "Economic growth accompanied by worsening social outcomes" is not worth having. We fully respect and we will insist that extraordinary measures be taken in extraordinary times to sustain jobs, but it is not counterintuitive to insist that those are also decent jobs. The recovery of which the Minister of State speaks will not be built on the back of the gig economy, precarious work or low-hours contracts. It will instead be built on de…

I start by putting on the record a concern I have about the scale of this legislation and the tight timeframe allowed to us in opposition to submit amendments. This is a 142-page Bill and it is broad and complicated. As it was only published last week, we only had two working days to submit amendments. I know it is necessary legislation but I request that the Minister and the Department consider the difficulties this has created for Deputies and for their staff behind the scenes. I will focus my remarks on the Euro…

I move amendment No. 1: In page 5, between lines 20 and 21, to insert the following: “Amendment of section 10 of Act of 2012 7. Section 10 of the Act of 2012 is amended by the insertion of the following subsection after subsection (2)— “(2A) Monies loaned to microenterprises in accordance with a scheme under this section shall— (a) be loaned interest free with zero repayments for the first 12 months of the loan, (b) cap interest rates on such loans at 2 per cent, with interest only being applied to cover the overhe…

I admit that I love to hear Members from Fianna Fáil referring to "the crash" as if it was something that just happened and over which they had absolutely no control. The two Deputies in the previous exchange are members of parties that were capable of agreeing the previous four budgets, so it is a bit rich for Deputy McGuinness to complain when both the parties were involved in the process. This will not help small and medium enterprises and they do not want to hear about it. They want to hear that the Minister un…

I hear what the Minister of State is saying. I may not necessarily agree with him but I do not have access to the advice of the Attorney General and, going on previous form, it will not be shared directly with us. I believe the Minister of State understands what I am saying. I was not the one who referred to risky businesses, high interest rates or start-ups. That was the Minister of State. I was only quoting the words he used. It is not that I was bringing up that; I was not. I was talking about viable businesses …

I will be sharing time with Deputies Pa Daly and Pearse Doherty. I will take this opportunity to wish An Tánaiste all the best and good luck in his new role. I welcome the Bill that is before us. I have spoken to people such as hairdressers, mechanics, tattoo artists and others who run microenterprises in my area. I know that those people are going to be eagerly watching proceedings here this evening. They face, and have faced, unprecedented challenges as a result of Covid-19 and the extraordinary public health mea…

We will share our time ten minutes with five minutes apiece. Within the confines of my ten minutes, I wish to allow a minute or two for the Minister to respond, if that is okay. Like others, I will take the opportunity to wish him the very best in his new role. It is a great honour not just for him, but for his family and friends, to serve as the head of the health services for the coming years. Having sat on the Opposition benches and the health committee with him, I know that he has an understanding of the issues…

That is fair enough.

I am sharing my time with Deputies Gould and Quinlivan, both of whom are to have four minutes. I will cede three of my seven minutes to the Minister because I want to use some of my time to hear a response. I believe the Ceann Comhairle said we are entitled to a response, but maybe not an answer. I feel like I have just stumbled in to some kind of job interview process. I do not know whether I should be commenting on it or not. Yesterday, Ms Phil Ní Sheaghdha gave evidence to the Covid committee. She spoke about in…

I am sharing time in slots of seven, four and four minutes, respectively. If it is okay we will do four and three minutes for my slot, with four minutes for questions and three minutes for answers. Earlier this month my husband was an inpatient in Beaumont Hospital. He had an operation for cancer. He is recovering now and is doing extremely well, but I want to take this opportunity to thank the healthcare workers in Beaumont, on behalf of myself and my family, for the care, kindness and compassion they showed to my…

Last night I received from the Minister's Department a reply to a parliamentary question that advises me the bed capacity in the public and voluntary system, not including private beds, has increased to 11,907. This means that because of Covid-19 we have been able to increase the capacity in our public hospitals by 1,407 beds compared with what the bed capacity review said we had in 2018. This is an increase of just over 1,400. The Minister will be aware, because I have been saying it to him for a long time, that a…