(Laoighis-Offaly): I imagine most of the contributors to date were unaware of the Protection of Young Persons (Employment) Act, 1977. In my last job I used to give talks and training courses on that legislation to young people in schools and it was always a source of amazement to them to discover the legislation. It was the experience of many of them that its provisions were not implemented.
I welcome any legislation introduced under the provisions of the social chapter of the European Union. The European Union is very remote from many people and relates to the market, finance, economies and other abstract matters. However, the partnership of the European Community, now the European Union, has been an important force in improving working conditions, the position of women in society and environmental standards. While this Bill is welcome in its own right, it is also welcome in the context of part of our obligations as signatories of the social chapter.
In addition to our EU obligations, this Bill also updates our legislation. It updates the 1977 Protection of Young Persons (Employment) Act and sections of the Conditions of Employment Act which date back to 1936. I welcome the fact that instead of piecemeal amendment of prior legislation, the Minister has presented a new Bill. I recommended such action during debates on previous legislation. It is much easier for those who use the legislation if it is all available in one Act rather than having to refer to three or more prior Acts.
Part of what we are amending dates back to 1936. From listening to some of the debate, one would think that the Minister was introducing something radically new or different. Some of the obligations which we are trying to meet through this legislation stretch back as far as 1919 and the decisions of the International Labour Organisation. Further decisions were taken by the International Labour Organisation in 1946 which were only brought into effect by the 1977 Act. We cannot be accused of going ahead of the posse on this one.
The Bill forces us to look at the conditions and terms under which children and young people are often expected to work in our society. I worked for seven years in a centre which provided education and training and encouraged work for early school leavers. Nobody has anything to fear from good legislation which is intended to promote their welfare. It does not remove the incentive to work but states that we, as a society, recognise that children and young people cannot be expected to work under the same terms and conditions as fully grown and mature people.
This debate dates back to the last century and the time of Dickens. In the early days of the 19th century, when people tried to introduce restrictions on child labour following the industrial revolution, many of the arguments and much of the ill informed comment which has taken place — mostly outside this House — since this Bill was published were also trotted out. One would swear that there were thousands of lovely jobs for young people to take. I worked with young people for many years and good jobs were damn hard to come by. Many low grade and low quality jobs were available but I did not encourage them to take such jobs. If their first experience of the world of work when they are 16 and 17 years of age was a low grade and low paid job with unsocial hours, they were not given an incentive to continue to participate in the world of work. When they signed on at the age of 18 years they did not try for further employment and stayed on the unemployment register as long-term unemployed because their first experience of the world of work was so bad.
We are not talking about preventing young people from working but severely restricting children at work, for which we should make no apology. Within those provisions we are still allowing them to do certain types of work and to work during school holidays. Children and young people must be employed in a responsible way and in a fashion which genuinely contributes to their general development and welfare, shows them that work is worthwhile and should be followed up, and gives them an incentive to participate as adults in the world of work. There has been a great deal of ill informed criticism of this Bill. I recognise that, as many Deputies stated, the legislation we pass in this House must be good legislation capable of being enforced.
I agree with the general prohibition on night work for young people. However, within that general parameter and in compliance with the European directive, we can try to build in as much flexibility as possible. There is a choice in the directive between banning night work between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. or between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. One could say that there is not much difference. If we can ban night work but still allow for some measure of flexibility, we can take account of many of the concerns expressed by Deputies. However, in my experience of my first job and my schooldays, many of those who, against the advice of their parents and teachers, persisted in long hours of night work did not do well at school. According to teachers and those who work in organisations such as FÁS, the evidence shows that over emphasis at a young age on work and earning money when young people should be trying — for their long-term benefit — to get the best education they can, can be detrimental.
I am concerned about enforcement. The fact that many speakers in this debate and outside the House did not know that a law was passed on this issue in 1977 shows that the public is not aware of this legislation and many other areas of labour law, particularly many of the laws which were passed in the 1970s. We have relied too much on the inquisitorial approach to enforcement — that if somebody does not comply with the legislation they are immediately visited by an inspector. I would like to see a much more co-operative approach to the dissemination of this information and the enforcement of the legislation on the ground.
In other European countries, organisations such as trade unions, employers' organisations and chambers of commerce take a much greater responsibility for informing their members about such legislation and putting it into practice on the ground in a co-operative rather than confrontational fashion. Too often in this country, we make regulations which are policed by inspectors who land people in court before they know what has happened. I would welcome a much more co-operative approach.
Trade unions do their best to make their members and the communities in which they operate more aware of such legislation. They also facilitate those who seek redress because their rights have been infringed. I would like to see a greater involvement of employers' organisations as this legislation benefits them as much as anybody else. We should ensure that a young person's first taste of work is a good experience which shows them that work is worthwhile and rewarding and gives them an incentive to participate in the world of work as they get older.
Employers' and business organisations are well organised and represented at national level. While they may express reservations about pieces of labour law, at the end of the day they generally go along with them. However, employers' organisations and chambers of commerce are very badly organised at local level. I want them to play a much fuller role in, first, making their members aware of this type of legislation, second, explaining to their members why it is in their interests to go along with it, and third, co-operating in some type of local mechanism of redress where that is possible. While I welcome the fact that redress, where, for example, somebody has been discriminated against in respect of this legislation, is now being made available through the rights commissioner and the employment appeals tribunal, I and other Deputies know that many people do not know how to gain access to it. If one lives in a town or village away from where these people are located, it is hard to find out where they are, it can be hard to get to see them and the whole mechanism, whereby documentation goes back and forth and one must appear at a hearing and make a submission, has become complicated over the years. This latter point is evident, in particular, in relation to the tribunal where one would nearly be afraid to advise anybody now about going to a tribunal without having first consulted a solicitor. The method of redress can be inaccessible and bureaucratic and I want the Government, the trade union and the employer organisations to examine methods of investigating complaints under this type of legislation at local level in a non-confrontational way as far as possible which may lead to a better result.
Often, under this type of legislation. if people make a complaint, they get a bad name in an area and employers decide not to employ them because they went to the tribunal or the rights commissioner. The confrontational way should be the last resort. Will the Minister examine how redress under labour legislation, including this Bill, can be effected in a more accessible, understanding, less confrontational and more effective way?
In general, the objective of the Bill is to ensure that young people and children are encouraged as much as possible to stay in school and, where work is available to them, to take it up under conditions which ensure they will not be exploited. We can congratulate ourselves on the fact that more and more young people are remaining in education but, in dealing with legislation, we must be cognisant of the fact that many young people are not staying in school. We do not want to put them in a situation where they are being forced into unsuitable employment and find they or their employer are breaking the law.
More attention needs to be given to the sector of our school-going population which is likely to drop out and end up in casual or low-grade employment and who will not have the protection of a trade union. I agree in principle that responsibility for that group should lie within the education sector but schools clearly cannot do the work for everybody. The Departments of Enterprise and Employment and Education need to refocus on the needs of potential early school leavers — and early school leavers — to ensure they are given as much education and work experience as possible and that effective measures are taken to encourage and assist them into the world of work.
I worked in this area for seven years before I became a Deputy and when the social guarantee for young people was introduced in 1986 and the National Manpower Service had initial responsibility for its implementation and monitoring, there was a good local liaison unit in my area which brought the school principals, manpower, social workers, probation officers and providers such as myself together to identify who was dropping out of school, to pick up on what they were doing and to try to get them into suitable education and training programmes. I regret such an arrangement is not available in my area at present. On paper, more young people are being catered for but the quality of the monitoring of those young people needs further examination. I have discussed this matter with the Minister of State and with the Minister for Education and will continue to address it because many of these young people end up doing the type of jobs in the conditions which the legislation is attempting to curb. If they are being forced to do that through having no other option or forced to earn between £20 and £25 per week because they cannot get anything else and their families need it, there is an obligation on us and the Departments of Enterprise and Employment and Education to ensure these young people are identified early, monitored at an early stage after leaving school and offered a worth-while programme of education or training which has an allowance which will not oblige them to take up much of this low-paid work. There is also an obligation to ensure the same type of resources, attention and value which other school leavers will get during their further two to three years in the secondary sector and, perhaps, two, three or four years in the third-level sector is given to the early school-leaver or the potential early school-leaver. While, as I said, much attention in terms of policy has been given to this matter, there is a dearth of attention and lack of priority given by many of the agencies concerned.
A special programme needs to be put in place for these young people. Reports and experts have identified this need but the problem still exists. While we can congratulate ourselves on the overall standard of our education sector, it has been clearly shown that this group ends up as the long-term unemployed. National and European resources and policy exist to ensure these young people can and should be helped and redirected from much of the undesirable work which this legislation attempts to combat.
We can all identify young people who are in undesirable types of work during unsocial hours. Maybe we can examine including as much flexibility as possible in the Bill while still meeting the aim of protecting young people in particular, in night work. We should examine weekend work and the evenings of Friday and Saturday, in particular. Again, it is not desirable for young people to work long hours at weekends but we must have something which is workable, which people will respect, which people will not fear and which they will see as being in their own interests. Unfortunately, the portrayal of this legislation outside, and sometimes, inside the House has not done this.
Going back to my first job, which was in the hotel and catering trade, at the age of 15; I should not have been there at all — the type of hours which we were expected to work were such that I would have been glad if somebody had told my employer I had to finish by 11 p.m. and could not be expected to work until 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. on a Friday or Sunday night.
The impression may have been given that we were out to stop people working. We are not trying to discourage people from working but to ensure that where they work, they do so in a controlled and beneficial fashion.
When the Minister has considered Deputies' comments on the Bill and it is passed. I ask her to consider some sort of programme to disseminate information on it. I was engaged in that type or process in my last job. It was interesting and rewarding because it was the first time many of the young people I met had ever heard of any protection under the law.
I was sorry to hear Deputy Ahern refer to transition years as "doss" years. I do not regard them as "doss" years. The work completed in transition years is very beneficial in encouraging young people to enter the world of employment. Transition years, the new civic, social and political programme and the work carried out by youth organisations, training workshops, Youthreach programmes and FÁS programmes provide young people with the ideal opportunity to discover what is available for the future.
I compliment the Minister of State for introducing this legislation and urge her to proceed with it as quickly as possible. She is assured of my support. I commend the Bill to the House and the general public.