I mean no disrespect to the Minister of State but I had hoped that the Minister would have managed to stay with us because I want to bring up a matter which I raised earlier which is pertinent to this section.
The Minister has been basing his case throughout this debate on the fact that nothing has changed; he is not privatising the Sugar Company, at best we dragged out of him that it would be part-privatisation. It would appear, judging from the response to this group of amendments and specifically to this amendment, that indeed everything has changed and that it is anticipated, as I suggested earlier, the new regime will take an entirely different outlook. It is regrettable that the Government should sponsor the removal of worker directors with an established pattern from the board of this company. They have no regard for the arguments advanced about the unique input that workers can make to an enterprise like this, to how they form an integral part of a company as valuable as this is. It throws out the window all the Government rhetoric down through the years about worker participation and industrial democracy. For example, the report of the advisory committee on worker participation as long ago as 1986 recommended the extension of the experience and experiment in the State commercial companies to the private sector. Here we have an opportunity, if nothing is changed, to underpin it in the legislation that the position of worker directors will be continued; the response of the Government is very revealing and disappointing.
I wish to refer to a matter which greatly disturbs me; at an earlier stage of the debate I raised the whole question of guarantees which the Minister was trotting out concerning the special share and many other things. He said that the Deputy need have no worry, that it was all in the memorandum and articles of association. I pursued him on that and, eventually, he ageed to make the memorandum and articles of association available, emphasising that they are only in draft form, which I appreciate. I have the memorandum and articles of association of the new Greencore plc and it is, as you can see, a very unwieldy document, written in the ultimate of meaningless legalese. In respect of this argument on worker directors I wish to draw the attention of the House to article (31) on page 6, which reads as follows:
(31) To promote freedom of contract, and to resist, insure against, counteract and discourage interference therewith, to join any lawful Federation, Union or Association, or do any other lawful act or thing with a view to preventing or resisting, directly or indirectly, any interruption of or interference with the Company's or any other trade or business, or providing or safeguarding against the same, or resisting or opposing any strike movement or organisation which may be thought detrimental to the interest of the Company or its employees, and to subscribe to any association or fund for any such purposes.
It may well be that the Minister has a perfectly coherent explanation for this, but this, I suggest to the House, is fantastic and extraordinary. Maybe there is a mistake somewhere in the drafting but article (31) is tantamount to ruling out even membership of a trade union. Certainly activity in a trade union for the purposes of "resisting, directly or indirectly, any interruption of or interference with the Company's or any other trade or business, or providing or safeguarding against the same, or resisting or opposing any strike... and to subscribe to any association or fund" may include a drafting error and perhaps there is a reasonable explanation for this. I would like to take the opportunity of Deputy Sherlock's and Deputy Kavanagh's amendments to get the Minister to say on the record of this House whether that clause says what it seems to say. Is a semi-colon missing anywhere? If so, does that explain how it goes on to talk about preventing, resisting and so forth? I would like to give the Minister an opportunity to consider that because it is a positively alarming clause. I have never seen it in the articles of association of any private company before now. I cannot imagine what its purpose is, in any event. I would like to hear the Minister explain what it is supposed to mean. Why is it there? Is this the attitude that is going to be taken to worker participation or industrial democracy, admitting, as I thought the Government admitted, that what they required were more participative structures in industry? Does the Minister for Labour, for example, know about this? I know not all his colleagues trust the Minister, Deputy O'Kennedy, on every matter but I wonder if he consulted the Minister for Labour here. I cannot imagine the Minister for Labour standing over that clause. If the officials have discovered an explanation for it at this stage I would like to hear it.