Barry Ward
Dún Laoghaire · Fine Gael · Ireland
“I acknowledge all of the factors the Minister of State set out. I welcome them all and it is really important that we spread that message. The second part of the Minister of State's response is really important and that is the EU jobs part. I would not necessarily limit it just to the European Union.”
“Let us not abdicate responsibility for politically unpopular decisions, which are still the right decisions, made at European level with the involvement of Irish people.”
“There is little doubt about the positivity we associate with membership of the European Union. Some 82% of Irish people favour membership of the European Union, the highest rate of approval of any European state.”
“It is really important, not from the point of view of influence but from the point of view of presence, that there are Irish people around the table when decisions are being made so that the Irish perspective is understood and heard.”
“To look at it from a purely economic standpoint, the value of being part of the Single Market is enormous. In 1973, we imported €340 million more in goods than we exported. In recent times, we have had an export surplus. We have exported more than €53 billion more than we have imported.”
“As we hold the Presidency of the Council of the EU and are at the heart of Europe, leading the agenda and setting the tone in respect of our priorities during the Presidency, what is the Government doing to communicate to Irish people just how lucky we are to be part of the European Union?”
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“Only now is Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council telling me that it is going to appoint contractors to put it back up. The Carlisle Pier, from which the mail boat left and the RMS Leinster left on its last journey in 1918, is so unstable that one cannot park cars on it, yet we draw our naval ships up next to it when they visit Dún Laoghaire Harbour. I hope that very soon an announcement will be made that the Naval Service will return on a more permanent basis to Dún Laoghaire Harbour. The issue is that these are heritage harbours. They are not really commercial going concerns. They are not going to pay the rent or wash their faces. They need investment from the State.”
“Once Stena Line decided it was no longer going to offer ferry services from Dún Laoghaire, which was announced in 2015, the revenue stream was cut off and the investment in what was a very valuable but precious harbour stopped. A list of infrastructure issues have arisen from that. In 2018, at the point when the Department of Transport handed it over to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, there was an estimated €33.1 million infrastructural deficit in relation to the harbour. I remember at the time issues about the structure of the East Pier. We know that subsequently in a storm - maybe five years ago - massive damage was done to the pier, which has been repaired. We also know that the historical sun shelter on the East Pier has been taken down.”
“The harbour was put into private ownership, albeit in the ownership of the State, through a company in 1992. That company was dissolved on 3 October 2018. Sole custody of the harbour was given to the local authority, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. I was in favour of that at the time. I was a member of the council at the time. I thought it would be much better run if it were in the hands of those who are elected locally because the reality is that the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company to a large extent ran that harbour into the ground. It did not have an adequate revenue stream but the company was run like a Fortune 500 company.”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as ucht a bheith anseo don cheist thábhachtach seo. There are heritage harbours all over the coast of Ireland. They are extremely valuable historical and heritage assets. I want to talk about the one that is local to me, which is Dún Laoghaire Harbour. It is more than 200 years old and it celebrated its bicentenary a couple of years ago. It is a Victorian harbour of immense proportions but also of immense importance. Its heritage value does not just involve the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who left Ireland's shores for the last time on their way to Britain, or the other historic events that are linked to it such as the sinking of great ships like the RMS Leinster . Its importance goes beyond its physical aspects. It is a very beautiful and very large harbour.”
“The most important thing we can take away from our third level and higher education institutes is what they give to everybody in this country and to everybody who comes here to study by way of opportunities, skills and innovation and the opportunity to take those skills and build on them within this country or abroad because all of it ultimately feeds back into the sector and into our economic success.”
“It provides graduates with professional qualifications in community and emergency care and information technology. People of all ages go to study there. It does not discriminate; it provides opportunities to people coming from all kinds of different backgrounds. That aspect of equality of opportunity is very important in third level education. We have heard about apprenticeships. When Deputy Simon Harris was Minister in the Department of further education, he did great work to advance opportunities in apprenticeships. We need to continue that and to make sure that, irrespective of the discipline people choose after leaving school, there are pathways for them to get better and to contribute at an increasingly higher level.”
“It contributes greatly to Ireland's standing in the design and technology space. It is an international powerhouse in the area of film. My wife is studying screenwriting there at the moment. It gives us great pride that the National Film School is in IADT. The digital media building, which the Minister opened only last week, is also an important part of the campus. This facility contains 19 digital design studios and advanced computer laboratories. It increases IADT's student capacity by 600 and expands programmes in areas such as 3D animation, enterprise and technology. These are areas where we desperately need to increase our innovation. On the education and training boards, I am lucky to also have Blackrock Further Education Institute in my constituency. It is one of Ireland's larger further education colleges.”
“It takes the form of fees from overseas students, research impacts, direct employment and the taxes paid by people who graduate from those universities and who then contribute to our economy at that level. To think locally, UCD is in the top 1% of ranked higher education institutions worldwide, although that does not mean we cannot do better. When I was in third level, UCD was the ninth biggest town in Ireland by population. It is an enormous institution in its own right. It employs 11,000 people and generates €1.3 billion for Ireland's economy every year. IADT is just up the road from where I live. It is now the Institute of Art, Design and Technology Dún Laoghaire. When I was growing up it was known as DLIADT. It has now become a global institution. There are Oscar winners who are graduates of IADT.”
“I know how hard people work within our university sector. I also know the level of innovation within it. We need to commit to giving the universities support in that. I also think of the benefits we get, economically and nationally, from universities. A report commissioned by the Irish Universities Association found that an individual undergraduate degree holder will generate a net gain of €62,000 for the Exchequer every year. That is after you take out the cost of educating that person and putting him or her through college. The seven universities in this country contribute €8.9 billion to the Irish economy every year. That is an enormous sum of money.”
“There is no doubt about the power we have within our third level sector and the opportunity it gives to anybody who comes out of our school system to flourish in a global environment and bring the skills they learned within the sector at whatever level to bear on our economy and our international reputation. People take that opportunity and use it to travel throughout the world, building a reputation for Ireland as much as for themselves individually. As we are part of the European Union, if you go to university in this country, you also have the opportunity to take part in the Erasmus programme, to be a student in another European country, to build contacts, to get cultural experiences and to learn from other university environments. That is of enormous benefit. I have served on the governing authorities of IADT and UCD.”
“Déanaim comhghairdeas leis na hAirí. Tá aithne agam ar an mbeirt acu agus táim ag tnúth go mór leis an obair atá le déanamh acu agus an seans atá acu chun an obair sin a dhéanamh. Go háirithe, táim ag labhairt faoi smaoineamh an Aire, an Teachta Lawless, iarraidh ar lucht taighde ar fud an domhain, go háirithe dóibh nach bhfuil seans acu obair taighde a dhéanamh ina dtíortha féin, teacht anseo go dtí ár n-ollscoileanna agus ár gcoláistí chun an obair taighde sin a dhéanamh in Éirinn. Is maith an rud é seo dúinne, don gheilleagar agus do mhuintir na n-ollscoileanna.”
“The reality is that Sinn Féin has voted against everything the European Union has tried to do. It has opposed every referendum to advance our position within the European Union. I do not think Sinn Féin should resile from that. It should be honest about its opposition to it instead of trying to reform itself. If Sinn Féin is truly European, great, but let us also recognise that Europe does not happen by accident. We have to play our part and contribute. I am proud that Ireland does that and look forward to us doing it more and more in the future.”
“Many of the progressive laws that we have passed in the State have been handed down to us by the European Union, whether health and safety legislation, road safety legislation, employment rights or equal human rights. They have often come from our MEPs and Commissioners in Europe, through directives and other European instruments, to force us into doing that. We all benefit from that. European laws save lives here through food safety and work safety. There are literally people alive in this country because of the European Union. That is particularly important when looking at the fact that the European Union was a peace project. Let us not take it for granted either. I heard already in this debate a discussion about Sinn Féin's role in European policy.”
“Even accounting for inflation, that is an enormous economic turnaround. The trade opportunities that we have as part of the European Union are massive. The opportunities we have from the basic European principle of free movement of people are also massive. Some 8.8% of Irish people of working age live in other European member states. A total of 35,000 Irish people are working in Germany and 25,000 Irish people are working in France. That opportunity is there because we are part of that larger Union and we have the opportunity to work within the European Union as equal member states and partners. The benefits are beyond dispute and important. There are cultural benefits.”
“That was an important turning point for Ireland, saying that we no longer lived in the shadow of the United Kingdom but instead joined this bigger trading bloc and group of nations, of which there were 12 at the time, as an equal member. We had equality with France, Germany and other enormous European states. We joined as equal partners, which was very different from the relationship we had with the United Kingdom at that time. It was a further step down the road of independence for us. With the European monetary system in 1979, we genuinely severed the tie between the Irish pound and sterling and started to advance our own cause. Looking at where we are today, in 1973, imports into this country were valued at £1.4 billion and exports at £1.1 billion, while in 2020, imports were valued at €85.3 billion and exports exceeded €160 billion.”
“With the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, which came into effect in 1949, which was the thirty-third anniversary of the Rising, we started to assert our real independence and really stand on our own feet. On 15 February 1971, our currency was changed to the decimal system, marking the end of hundreds of years of trading in crowns, shillings and pence. Other countries such as France have been doing this since the 18th century, but this was the first opportunity for Ireland to break away from the imperial monetary system in the United Kingdom and establish our independence in that regard. In 1973, we joined the European Union, along with Denmark and the United Kingdom.”
“We still had a situation where we were tied to sterling in monetary affairs. The UK was a massive part of our export market and we were very economically dependent on it. Similarly, looking at the courts, decisions made by UK courts were still binding on judges in this jurisdiction. It has taken us a long time to emerge from that level of independence and to be a truly sovereign country where we genuinely make our decisions and we genuinely stand on our own two feet. There is no doubt that being part of the European Union has allowed us to do that in a tangible way. Post Independence, we still had a foreign head of state. It was not until we had our own Constitution that we started to assert our independence.”
“Tá mé thar a bheith bródúil labhairt ar an ábhar seo. Tá sé tábhachtach dúinn mar thír, ach tá sé tábhachtach domsa freisin mar Theachta Dála. The value that we have as part of the European Union is enormous, so I am hugely proud to consider myself a European but also to speak on this topic in this House, in the week when we celebrate Europe Day. I am cognisant of the fact that 91% of people in Ireland value our membership of the European Union. That is the highest rate of support that the European Union has in any European country. For me, the European Union is important because we as a country achieved independence 100 years ago but when you look back to 1922, you could certainly say that it was a very qualified independence. We still had the British monarch as the head of state in this country.”
“The removal of this product from the market is not supported by the international organisations representing physicians who practise in this area. They all want to see it restored. The medical evidence is that it should be restored. However, there appears to be a bureaucratic and certainly nonsensical block on its restoration. Can this situation please be fixed?”
“It is tremendously unfair that they should have to go abroad for this surgery when it would make much more sense to deliver it in this jurisdiction. The persistence in providing inferior options for treating this condition leads to multiple attendances at urogynaecology and urology clinics. It has a devastating effect on waiting times for appointments for patients, who, in previous times, were successfully treated and discharged back to their GPs. They now must continue to attend those services, which takes up time and resources. If we are in favour of choice for women, we should be in favour of giving them this choice in this jurisdiction, rather than relying on exporting the problem to other countries around the European Union. It defies explanation as to why that is happening.”
“It seems to me that this does not make sense at all. The worst thing about that is that doctors here - gynaecologists, urogynaecologists and surgeons - were performing this operation in Ireland with enormous success for years. Since 2018, they have not been able to do that, with the result that they refer their patients abroad to hospitals in the rest of the European Union. A constituent contacted me regarding the one in Amsterdam. That hospital provides a very successful service. The Irish women who need to undergo this surgery now find themselves having to go abroad. They are supported in that regard by the HSE but not in every respect. There are additional costs involved, including travel, accommodation, etc.”
“Throughout the world, relevant authorities rowed back on that but Ireland blindly followed the UK surgeon general and withdrew these mesh slings from the market. All of the meshes used in surgeries were withdrawn from the market in July 2018 and they have not been put back on the market since then. This means that meshes being used in all vaginal surgeries have been removed from the market. It is now seven years later, and they still have not restored it despite the fact that although it does not work for prolapse surgery, it works very well for the stress urinary incontinence surgery. Specialists in Ireland have been offering all the services they can but ultimately not the surgery, and the extraordinary thing is that the surgery is available throughout the European Union, just not in Ireland or the UK.”
“It involves urinary pessaries, for example. The other way is surgery, and the surgery involves the insertion of this mesh sling. The reality is that where the conservative treatments fail, the surgical treatments are much more effective, and they are not available in this country. The mid-urethral mesh is just one of the solutions that can be put forward but it offers shorter operating time to perform, shorter recovery time for the women who undergo the surgery because of its minimally invasive nature, lower rates of subsequent repeat incontinence surgery, and lower rates of complication. It is something that has worked. In the late 2000s, the idea was taken that they would expand the use of these meshes into other areas, including prolapse surgery. That did not work. It had complications and it did not have the same rate of success.”
“This is an important issue. The irony of two men discussing a women's health issue is not lost on me. I thank Dr. Gerry Agnew, a consultant gynaecologist at St. Michael's Hospital in Dún Laoghaire, and Dr. Suzanne O'Sullivan, president of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in Ireland, for bringing this to my attention. The issue I want to raise regards treatment for stress urinary incontinence, which affects one in three women over the age of 45. It is a substantial issue. It is solved by the insertion of a thing called the mid-urethral mesh sling, which has been used extensively around the world for treatment of this condition in women since the late 1990s. There are essentially two ways to treat the condition. One is a conservative way that is non-surgical and involves physiotherapy.”
“They need our support. The Government wants to support them, but I would like to see them getting what they are entitled to sooner rather than later. If there is a circumstance where a business got ICOB 1 and was denied ICOB 2 or did not get ICOB 1 and, therefore, was not entitled to ICOB 2, that needs to be rectified. We cannot leave any business in the lurch because of a simple clerical error that was made at local level. Let us try to fix this.”
“I acknowledge what the Government has done. These supports are important. We are talking about small businesses that employ an enormous number of people throughout the country but are not massively profitable and, therefore, are vulnerable when these grants are not given to them. The grants are important to ensure their viability. Will the Minister of State do two things in particular? I acknowledge what he said about the appeal process coming along and we have spoken about this before. I welcome that. It is timely, and the more timely it is, the better. I hear what the Minister of State has said about the timeline, but if we could speed that up and have it in place by the autumn for businesses, it would make a considerable difference to local economies around the country. These businesses are the lifeblood of our economy.”
“Mistakes happen - I am not criticising that fact - but we must have fair procedures that mean when a mistake happens, a business is not left in a vulnerable position and that it is entitled to appeal and get the money it should have got in the first place.”
“I am very pleased to hear the Government has approved that appeal process. It is obviously very important. The kind of businesses denied these facilities are quite vulnerable. They are small businesses that need these supports, so I welcome that. I note it was promised some time ago, so when the Minister of State says it will be available soon, how soon might that be and could significant pressure be put on to make that happen? Can the Minister of State also confirm that in circumstances where schemes are closed and businesses have been denied grants, if they are granted a successful appeal, that they will not be denied in any way the full grant they would have received had that mistake not been made? I also acknowledge, as the Minister of State has, the work of local authorities in this regard.”
“I wish to first acknowledge the huge supports the Government has put in place for businesses to deal with the increase the cost of doing business, energy and other factors. I have been contacted by several businesses that have been miscategorised for these grants and, as such, have been denied grants they could have otherwise got. Is the Minister aware of this and if so, is there a proper appeals mechanism in place to allow them to appeal against any decision that has been wrongfully made?”
“At the same time, I recognise that Uisce Éireann cuts off water from time to time for valve replacement or natural leakage reduction and does not really tell people in the area. I know there is a text alert service but many people do not know about it. I find that when I notify people in the local area, it is the first they have heard of it. There is a communications part to be done. Let us all get together and make sure we give Uisce Éireann the tools it needs to deliver for everybody in the country, particularly where the demand is acute in Dublin.”
“What cannot be treated within a household setting would then come out through a brown water system, go into a sewer and ultimately end up in Poolbeg, Shanganagh or wherever it is that it needs to be treated. Until we do that, we will have no realistic prospect of dealing with the demand on the water system. Water affects everything, from households to the fire service, industry and all of the other things we need water for. It is an incredibly important part of our infrastructure within the city and we need to prioritise it. I want to acknowledge the fact that Uisce Éireann is making progress in that regard. I also acknowledge that in my dealings with the company through the Oireachtas liaison it has, I have found its staff to be an incredibly positive and active group of people.”
“If we are serious about tackling this problem, yes, we need to address supply issues and leakage issues, but we also need to deal with sewage and the inadequate sewerage system. We need to replace it with a modern system that separates water and recognises that water that goes into the drain is not the same as water that comes out of the toilet. Within a house one should have a blue water system, which is the potable treated water which comes in, and a grey water system, which is water recycled within the house. Using sustainable urban drainage, for example, water can be collected from drains in the garden or off the roof, while water used in showers or kitchen sinks can be recycled and used to flush the toilet.”
“It is mixed in with sewage that comes out of toilets throughout the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council area and it has nowhere else to go but into the sea and, at what is known as "the gut" at Seapoint, there is literally untreated raw sewage which occasionally flows into the sea at that point. What do we think that does to the water quality in Dublin Bay, where we fish and swim and which we use for leisure purposes? Of course it diminishes it. That is why local authorities have had to regularly issue bathing water advisory notices in recent years, telling people they cannot swim in Dublin Bay because it is so dirty and dangerous. That is a function of Irish Water as well.”
“That water should be diverted away from the sewerage system and the pipe should only be pumping sewage that is not diluted by rainwater for treatment in Poolbeg. That would immediately reduce the capacity issues in Poolbeg. That is not to mention other projects like Clonshaugh, which have not yet come on stream but are massively needed to deal with water treatment within Dublin. The bigger problem it creates is that when those heavy rainfall events occur, the attenuation tank at the back of the West Pier in Dún Laoghaire fills up very quickly because all the rainwater goes into it. When the tank is full and the pipe that goes in to Poolbeg is working at full capacity, there is nowhere else for that overflow to go.”
“It is totally inadequate to deal with the population we now have in Dublin. In Dublin Bay one can see the knock-on effect on water quality. When there is what is called a substantial rainfall event - when it rains heavily - the run-off from the roads goes into the sewerage system and down to the pumping station at the back of the West Pier, where there is an attenuation tank which stores the water, and it is pumped through an undersea bed pipe from the back of the West Pier to the Poolbeg sewage treatment plant. The pumping station can only pump a certain amount of water and the plant itself can only treat a certain amount of water. The idea that the plant is needed to treat run-off from roads and other drainage systems within the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area is a nonsense. It does not need to do that.”
“This would involve putting in parallel grey water systems, sustainable urban drainage systems, water collection, water storage and things like that which reduce the amount of water we waste and reuse water in a way that makes the most out of the water that comes into the house. The idea is that certain systems within houses, such as kitchen sinks and showers produce water after the fact which cannot be drunk, but it can be treated very simply within the home and used for other functions, such as flushing toilets. In that way, water used to flush the toilet would have been used once already within the house. That would hugely decrease the demand of that household for water but also the output from the house, which creates other knock-on problems. In Dublin the Victorian infrastructure we have for dealing with our sewage is creaking.”
“Nationally, Uisce Éireann has made progress in reducing leakage by 9% since 2018. We still, however, have a leakage rate of 37% nationally and 33% in Dublin. That is an enormous amount of water that is being collected, treated and put into pipes but then not getting to the taps where it is needed. It is a huge problem but I recognise the very important work Uisce Éireann is doing to reduce that leakage figure. Let us look at other innovations. One of the things I have been talking about for many years, including when I was a member of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, is about putting in place water systems in domestic settings to save water.”
“-----for the greater Dublin area. In fact, we depend on Blessington and other places for huge amounts of water. The point he makes is absolutely right, however, in that there is going to be an increasing demand on that water supply. We need to be putting in place measures now to ensure the water will be there. There are so many ways in which we can do that. Obviously we can find alternative water sources. Deputy Ó Muirí mentioned the plan to move water from the River Shannon, where it is in abundance, to serve the greater Dublin area. I agree with that plan. Some people find it controversial but in the medium term we need to be actioning that plan. We also need to put measures in place to ensure we use as little water as possible. We know there is leakage in Dublin, although it is lower than elsewhere in the country.”
“I have been listening to the debate today and a great deal of sense has been talked but I think there is a little bit of speaking out of both sides of the mouth from Members in this Chamber who opposed water charges and think that is the end of the world but then complain that there is not a dependable funding stream for Irish Water or Uisce Éireann and the work it has to do. At the end of the day it is a major infrastructural element of Ireland and it needs to be funded. Yes, that money has to be provided but there seems to be a belief that it can be magicked out of thin air. I represent the constituency of Dún Laoghaire. Listening to my colleague, Deputy Ó Muirí, one would think that Dublin stops once one get outside the Dublin city area. I know he said that 85% of the water comes from the Liffey but I do not think that is true-----”
“Really what it does is create a new paragraph in subsection (5) but it does so by way of three amendments. Section 7(a) states: ... in section 36(5) [of the 2015 Act], (i) in paragraph (c) will be amended by the substitution of "National Minimum Wage Act 2000," for "National Minimum Wage Act 2000, or". Instead of just taking the paragraph it wants to insert and rewriting it, it makes three amendments to change commas, add in or and change the list of provisions provided in section 36(5) of the 2015 Act. The next paragraph does exactly the same for section 41(7) of the 2015 Act. It cannot be read in the absence of reading the 2015 Act and going through it in a careful way to ascertain exactly what is being said.”
“One of points I frequently make in legislative debates is that we should be looking at passing consolidating legislation, particularly when we are passing an amending piece like this, which is very difficult to read. Two examples that spring to mind relate to section 6. Section 6 of the Act refers to rulings made under section 41 or section 44 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015, which is defined in the Bill. When reading this, you must go back to the 2015 Act, unless you are an employment lawyer, to find out what a ruling under section 41 or section 44 is. It seems to be a totally unnecessary burden to put on the reader that they must consult another piece of legislation but it gets worse in section 7, which amends the same Act of 2015. For example, if we look at section 7(a), it amends section 36(5) of the Workplace Relations Act 2015.”
“It is undoubtedly something that will ultimately be interpreted by the courts and there will be cases where it is borderline but has the Minister any views on what constitutes such a reason? It is worth acknowledging at this point that so much of our employment legislation and employment rights legislation has been handed down to us from the European Union. We have benefitted massively from our membership of the European Union in terms of being informed as to how we should progress to make life easier and better for employees. This legislation certainly improves that and helps bring us in line with much of the legislation that exists across the European Union. I said I would come back to points relating to drafting.”
“Germany has a statutory age limit for when an employee becomes eligible for a state pension which is between 65 and 67 years, depending on the date of birth of that employee. The statutory retirement age is not mandatory and employment contracts do not end automatically when a certain age is reached or at a time when the employee is entitled to the statutory pension. The receipt of any kind of pension does not constitute a sufficient reason for termination either. I note this legislation talks about a good and valid reason or a reasonable basis for requiring a person to retire if they serve a notice to the employer. Does the Minister have any view on what constitutes a reasonable basis for such a thing?”
“We should also be looking at removing arbitrary age bars for those public servants who are in a position to continue to deliver beyond them. This does not mean there should not be a choice for those people but there should be the opportunity for us to review them. Not everyone can continue, or wants to continue, beyond that but we should be looking at a balancing mechanism which allows us to not lose the institutional memory that comes with it. It is worth looking at other examples close to home. The United Kingdom, for example, repealed its default retirement age of 65 in April 2011, so we are quite far behind in catching up with them. In the UK, there is no state or default retirement age and employers are prohibited from implementing a compulsory retirement age, much in the same vein as this legislation.”
“At the moment, other statutory instruments require judges in the superior courts to retire at 70 years of age and judges in the District Court to retire at 65. Why do we insist on putting those measures in place? Why do we insist on placing these arbitrary limits on the ability of people to continue working? Judges in the High Court, the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court have an expertise that is unrivalled in many sectors. They have experience in those judicial positions that is of enormous value to this State and yet we have this arbitrary 70-year cut-off where they cannot work, even though many of them would be perfectly able to continue and it would benefit us enormously if they did. Let us not just be myopic about this and look at this in the context of contractual employment.”
“The difficulty is that up to this point, the State has been telling people they have to stop working at a certain point. There has often been a substantial discrepancy between those working in the private sector and those working in the public sector. Where we have full employment, we should look at measures, exactly like those contained in this Bill, to ensure that people who want to continue working are allowed to do so. That is not to ignore the institutional memory that comes with people. The experience and length of service they have means they often know better how to do the job than somebody who is coming in. There are examples even in the public sector. In the Judiciary, for example, this will not change, although I am open to correction in this regard.”
“In passing legislation such as this, we need to put in place supports for such businesses to ensure they remain viable and have what they need to continue in the teeth of increased employee rights and increased burdens on employers. As I said, this legislation should not necessarily place further burdens or expenses on employers in that regard because we are talking about people in their mid-60s, predominately between 63 and 66, who are, for the most part, perfectly capable of continuing to work. It is important to recognise that the age demographic of society is changing all the time. We are living longer and better. People into their 60s and 70s are perfectly capable of living productive employed lives and contributing in the way they want to. They should not be denied the opportunity to do that.”
“However, it is also worth noting that in speaking about increased rights for employees, whether it is the minimum wage, pension auto-enrolment or this measure, which is not in the same category, we should also acknowledge that in establishing these rights, we also place a burden on employers, particularly small and medium enterprises which have to comply with the law in this regard. While I support these provisions, the State, the Government and the Oireachtas need to acknowledge that this places an additional burden on employers. When those employers are small and have low turnover or low profit margins, it can place a strain on the business and its survivability. Very often, these are local businesses providing local services in communities. They are important local employers but also important local providers.”
“Section 10 provides that "an employer who, without reasonable cause, fails to provide an employee with a reasoned written reply" will be guilty of an offence and "liable on summary conviction". I welcome that the section also provides for a corporate offence, so individual directors will not necessarily escape, even if they have not been directly involved, and the company itself, if the employer is a company, does not escape either. Creating this criminal offence that can be enforced is really important.”
“To reflect what other Members said, this is also about the pension gap that already exists. The Bill does not really do anything to bridge that gap or address the unfairness against women who were subject to the marriage bar and found themselves exiting employment before they had a chance to accrue pension rights or those who have spent time out of employment for various legitimate reasons, such as having a family or caring for an older person, which is so often the case and disproportionately affects women. The Bill does not do anything to address that. It cannot do everything but it is important to note we have not made the progress we need to make in that regard. This is, however, a welcome Bill and I note that ICTU has indicated its broad support for it in the context of the rights it provides for workers.”