Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 9 May 1984

Vol. 103 No. 11

Hours of Work Bill, 1984: Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time".

Minister of State at the Department of Labour (Mr. G. Birmingham)

Unemployment continues to be our most serious economic and social problem and every avenue must be explored to try to alleviate this problem. We have a relatively new and comparatively undeveloped industrial structure in this country, with somewhat limited natural resources and a rapidly increasing labour force, with a level of unemployment which is particularly acute. It would be unrealistic to assume that everything will return to normal when the recession is over and that employment will again automatically increase. Such an assumption would ignore the advances that have taken place in new technology, the decline in many industries which had been regarded as traditional sources of employment, and the increase in the number of young people seeking employment for the first time.

The most obvious way to improve employment opportunities is to encourage and assist in the setting up of new industries and enterprises. There are additional, less direct, measures which may be taken, including the introduction of some forms of work sharing. Various proposals have been put forward for action in such areas as flexible retirement, part-time work, temporary work, shift work, reduction of working hours and restrictions on overtime working.

The main factors giving rise to overtime are fluctuations in demand for products or services. There may also be a certain amount of overtime working in some enterprises based on tradition and practice over a long period. Indeed, in some areas of employment overtime in recent years has come to be regarded as a permanent part of working life. In the present economic climate, with an unacceptably high level of unemployment, the practice of systematic overtime cannot be justified for some, while others particularly many young people, are unable to obtain work. It is essential to ensure that new jobs should be created rather than have increased overtime working for those fortunate enough to be in employment. The Bill will help to make workers and employers more aware of the need to restrict overtime working to reasonable levels. This will not alone benefit the individual worker, but will also help towards spreading the amount of work available among more people. Indeed, the Bill's real strength will be educational. It will ensure that workers who are at present working long hours of overtime over long periods will become accustomed to working more normal hours and that employers will need to look at the other options open to them rather than automatically resorting to overtime working as a means of dealing with the work load.

A study of overtime working in Ireland was carried out by University College, Galway, in 1979-80. Firms were asked for their views on the prospects for recruiting additional full-time employees instead of putting existing staff on overtime. The results showed that about 20 per cent of overtime could be translated into extra jobs and that if this were achieved, around 12,000 additional jobs would be created in the non-agricultural sector. A further study carried out by University College, Galway in 1982 confirmed that, despite the recession, specific cases existed across industry where there was scope for increased employment on the basis of reduced overtime.

The whole area of work sharing and the contribution it can make to employment creation has been under consideration by the EEC for some years. The Commission is at present preparing a draft Council recommendation aimed at reducing working time and limiting overtime with the objective of reducing unemployment in the Community. A survey of 20 European countries carried out in 1981 by a Council of Europe study group, showed that almost half of the countries reviewed had already introduced a statutory 40 hour week. Where legal limits for overtime working were laid down, the trend was towards a limit of ten hours or less per week. The aim of the Hours of Work Bill, which is to fix the normal working week at 40 hours and to encourage the creation of employment by limiting overtime, is thus in line with current European thinking and initiatives in relation to working hours.

The existing legislative provisions governing working hours in this country are contained in the Conditions of Employment Acts of the late thirties, which apply only to industrial, shop and hotel workers. Many of the provisions of this legislation, which allow a normal working week of 48 hours — 56 hours in the case of hotel workers — are no longer relevant to current practice. The normal working week of workers generally has tended to be fixed by collective agreements at about 40 hours. The Bill before the House gives statutory recognition to this situation.

The Bill will apply to all workers except those in firms primarily engaged in the transport of persons or goods, those in essential services, fishermen, residential caretakers and close relatives. These exceptions are provided for in section 2 of the Bill. If it becomes apparent that any of these exclusions are not warranted there is provision in this section for having the class of workers concerned brought within the scope of the Bill. Before availing of this provision, however, the Minister is first obliged to consult with representatives of the workers and employers concerned.

The key provisions of the Bill are contained in section 4, which fixes the normal working week at a maximum of 40 hours or an average of 40 hours where weekly hours vary, and in section 5, which limits the amount of overtime which may be worked to 40 hours in any period of four consecutive weeks or 100 hours in any period of 12 consecutive weeks.

Some fears have been expressed that the provisions of the Bill before the House could adversely affect the operations of some undertakings. Employer interests in the food processing business, the hotel and catering industry and others have expressed such fears. I would like to avail of this opportunity to assure them that the Bill has been designed to ensure that its provisions will not create difficulties for industry where special circumstances such as seasonal variations in working time, exist. Section 4, for instance, allows working hours to be averaged over 12 months where they vary on a seasonal basis.

Sections 3 and 6 provide the necessary flexibility to ensure that the freedom of firms to operate efficiently is not restricted. Section 3 provides for the making of an order, following approval by both Houses of the Oireachtas, to exclude a class or classes of workers from all the provisions of the Bill. The Minister will be obliged to consult with the representatives of employers and workers concerned before making such an order.

Section 6 provides for the making of regulations, following consultations with representatives of the workers and employers concerned, permitting the working of additional overtime by a class or classes of workers. It also provides for the issue to firms of permits to exceed the overtime limits where there is a significant decrease in the number of workers employed in the firm or a significant increase in the volume of work required to be done. This section in particular should allay the fears of those who consider the Bill too restrictive.

The Bill will not provide for rates of pay for overtime because I believe that such matters are best settled through our system of free collective bargaining between employers and workers. The provisions in the Conditions of Employment Acts for the payment of overtime at a minimum rate of time plus 25 per cent for industrial, shop and hotel workers will continue to apply to such workers. The minimum rates for payment of overtime provided for in employment regulation orders and in registered employment agreements made under the Industrial Relations Acts — which is time plus 50 per cent, except in the case of agricultural workers, where it is time plus one third — will also continue to apply. Section 11 of the Bill provides that all workers and employers covered by the Bill may negotiate and give effect to arrangements providing for time off in lieu of payment for overtime. The 1979 UCG study considered that the establishment of this practice in legislation might provide some impetus towards the wider acceptance and adoption of such a practice in the context of collective bargaining.

Under section 8 workers who work for more than one employer are restricted in regard to the aggregate of the weekly hours they work to the maximum weekly hours allowed for in one employment. Agreements may be made under the Protection of Young Persons Act, 1977 to vary the maximum weekly working hours permitted for young persons under that Act. Section 7 provides that such agreements shall not permit the employment of a young person in excess of 50 hours a week.

The opportunity has been taken in section 12 of the Bill to repeal section 16 of the Conditions of Employment Act, 1936, which gives the Minister for Labour power, after consultation with representatives of employers and workers concerned, to prohibit the employment of female workers on particular forms of industrial work, or to fix the proportion of female workers employed in such work to other workers so employed. I consider this to be a discriminatory provision which has no place in modern legislation.

The Bill will be enforced by inspectors of the Department of Labour, and section 9 provides the necessary powers for the inspectors to do this.

The remaining sections provide for necessary definitions, penalties for offences, regulations for the keeping of records by employers, and other standard provisions.

This Bill will, I believe, make a contribution to the creation of additional employment. I commend the Bill to the House.

Professor Hillery

The Bill before us seeks to regulate working time and aims to facilitate the expansion of jobs in the economy. Any measure which tackles unemployment is welcome. It remains to be seen whether the Bill will meet this objective in practice. I hope it does so.

The Bill is, presumably, based on the assumption that there is room for a significant reduction in overtime without adversely affecting the efficiency of enterprises. Presumably, therefore, it is believed that there is a substantial amount of systematic overtime in the economy. Is this in fact the case? Excessive and unnecessary systematic overtime is a serious cause of inefficiency and can arise because management is not adequately controlling production demand or perhaps because management does not want to tackle what employees see as a means of producing tolerable pay levels and thereby run the risk of industrial action. Some overtime working is obviously necessary. The Bill provides for emergencies like an abnormal increase in the volume of work in a particular enterprise. However, I would ask the Minister if his Department have formed an estimate of the ratio of systematic overtime to total overtime working.

Some years ago, it was claimed in Britain that the highest levels of overtime worked occurred in the lowest paid industries. I suspect the same holds true here. If it does, we are in effect asking those on low rates of pay to reduce overtime levels in order to help increase employment. This makes it all the more necessary to link the reduction of permitted working time with a general review concerning the improvement of productivity and with it a review of basic pay.

Serious unemployment levels in all western societies together with the application of micro-electronic technology in various industries and services have, of course, led Governments to explore a range of possibilities for increasing employment, including the time spent at work. Also, in this context, work-sharing, to which the Minister has referred in his opening speech and which involves the redistribution of existing work, has been the subject of a number of concrete initiatives in several countries in the western democracies.

In Ireland, Government, trade unions and employers are at one in identifying the magnitude of our unemployment problem. There is not, however, the same degree of consensus on how the problem should be tackled and solved.

On financial grounds alone, unemployment is a very costly problem. For example, in 1983 it has been estimated that unemployment payment and the loss of tax revenue amounted to £850 million. Added to this financial cost is the human cost of long-term unemployment as manifested in material deprivation and psychological damage.

One option in tackling our enormous unemployment problem is to share the available work among a greater number of people. The Bill before us which provides for controlling and reducing overtime does represent a step in this direction. The overtime limits in the Bill of 40 hours over four consecutive weeks and 100 hours over 12 consecutive weeks are not harsh. Based on experience with this legislation, it may well prove possible to reduce gradually the overtime limits, perhaps every year. The Bill when enacted and enforced will need close monitoring. The normal rational for overtime working is the degree of demand for goods or services from individual enterprises.

Under this Bill overtime limits will be set irrespective of the degree of the demands, though emergencies will be catered for. There is no guarantee however, and this is a cause for concern, that employers will recruit additional people to compensate for overtime, if reduced. Instead, they could for example seek improvements in productivity by negotiating the elimination of restrictive practices or by increased mechanisation. It is unlikely that the provisions of the Bill will be welcomed by workers, especially those who at present work overtime in excess of the limits in the Bill. Indeed, there are several Labour Court recommendations which illustrate organised opposition to the reduction of overtime. If the provisions of the Bill are to work in practice and the hoped-for increased employment is to materialise, the active support of both employers and workers will be necessary. The Government should consider, I suggest, in what ways they might facilitate the transition from present working hours to the new limits set by the Bill.

The aim of the Bill is to expand jobs in the economy by sharing existing work. I would like to make a few suggestions to the Minister for the redistribution of existing work in instances where the Government are the paymaster. I note that the Bill will not apply to certain types of workers, including doctors and nurses. On the face of it I can understand the rationale behind the exclusion of these two professions from the provisions of the Bill. However, in the case of doctors it is worth remembering that medical education is expensive and is heavily subsidised by the Exchequer. Within the general medical service — the GMS — however, which is funded by the State, many doctors have overloaded practices, while simultaneously, there is unemployment and emigration among doctors whose education has been subsidised by the State. There seems to be a case for examining work-sharing possibilities in the GMS. Again, I wish to refer to two other professions — dentistry and nursing — where there is a substantial amount of State investment in education and training. More specifically I want to refer to married women with young families who are qualified dentists and nurses. Some of these married professional young women work full-time but find combining the roles of housewife, mother and the full-time professional job a great strain. Others decide not to take up professional work at all and devote all their time and energy to managing their homes and rearing their children. The rearing of children is, of course, a vital and priceless function in terms of both the family and the contribution to the country and its future. I fear that in the ongoing debate on the advancement of women's rights, too little attention and credit is given to the incomparable role that the full-time housewife and mother plays in Irish society. Having said that, I think that in the case of nurses and dentists who either hold State jobs or would wish to take up such positions of public service and who at the same time are housewives and mothers, every effort should be made by the State to facilitate their participation in the labour force. For example, there are mothers who are also full-time nurses and dentists in this category who would, if the opportunity were provided, welcome the chance to work half-time rather than full-time. There are others who are now full-time housewives and mothers who would wish to work half-time in these professions and use their professional skills. I would ask the Minister to examine the possibilities of facilitating these people in the manner I have suggested. I feel that for too long our thinking has been too rigid in respect of such positions.

In conclusion, I welcome the aim of the Bill but remain somewhat sceptical, for the time being at any rate, about its potential value in practice. As to the specifics of the Bill, the Committee Stage will afford the opportunity to go into more detail.

Mr. J. Higgins

I would like to avail of this opportunity to welcome the Minister of State to the House. This is the first opportunity I have had to welcome him although I understand that he has been here on previous occasions. I also extend a hearty welcome to the Bill, and from the reaction of the first speaker from the Opposition side of the House one anticipates a general welcome, with some reservations, for the Bill. It is a long overdue Bill because, as has been stated by the Minister of State in his opening remarks, it is the first legislation to be introduced to the Oireachtas since the thirties regulating and stipulating hours of work. I would also like to extend a welcome to the Bill in the hope that it can achieve its stated aims, one of which is the facilitating of the expansion of employment in the economy. This again has been welcomed from the other side of the House and must, of course, be welcomed by everybody.

However, we must guard against over-expectation with regard to the various tenets and what the Bill can, should and is designed to achieve. The primary aim of the Bill as has been outlined by the Minister of State, is to reduce the working hours in order to streamline things, to make the average normal working week 40 hours and thereby at least to bring us into line with the standards already being applied in Europe. Initially when one heard and read of the Bill and saw the general public reaction from employers, unions and the media comment, one was taken somewhat aback by the general reserve and from some quarters the general degree of caustic comment in relation to the Bill itself.

The point made by the unions initially was that the working time should have been further reduced to 35 hours per week. In fairness, this was already alluded to by Senator Hillery. Many jobs in this country have now reached this standard; indeed, the vast majority of jobs in the public sector, the public service, are below the 35-hour threshold. The main reservation as regards the Federated Union of Employers seems to have been that overtime is essential in certain jobs and these provisions could, therefore, be overly restrictive. Again, as has been stated by the Minister of State and Senator Hillery, the 40 hours overtime in any period of four weeks is a relatively generous provision. When one takes it in conjunction with 100 hours in any 12 weeks I think it is sufficiently flexible and sufficiently generous to accommodate the welfare of all. The Minister is trying to be fair. He is trying to strike a balance and to achieve equilibrium and I think in this Bill he has done this.

As regards whether it will achieve one of its stated objectives, the creation of additional jobs, initially at a press conference the Minister stated that the aim and objective of the Bill would be to achieve something in the region of 10,000 to 12,000 new jobs. Again I ask that we should not expect too much initially from the Bill. It is very hard to regulate how precisely the excess hours will be pruned off as a result of the introduction of this legislation, but undoubtedly, given time, the benefits that will accrue from the Bill must percolate into the economy by way of creating additional jobs apart altogether from one aim of the Bill which is to achieve equality, fairness and general equilibrium. People should see this legislation not as a main job creating factor but as a component in the Government's overall plan to create new jobs. It must be taken in context with work-sharing, with the general job creation plan and the general drive to create and to stimulate jobs within the economy.

The elimination of excess overtime and double jobbing must be and is welcomed by all fair-minded people. Every measure which will assist towards employment must be welcomed. There will also be a general welcome for the Minister's undertaking in the Bill to provide the necessary personnel by way of departmental inspectors to ensure that the provisions of the Bill are enforced. Undoubtedly, it will be very difficult and one would like to see the maximum vigilance, particularly at the outset, in order to ensure that the spirit of the Bill comes through and is enforced.

The penalties for breaches provide a necessary deterrent. Those penalties for the employers who abuse the conditions laid down in the Bill are sufficiently prohibitive to ensure that the deterrent objective is realised. Those penalties for the employee who decides to flout the Bill are sufficiently realisable and realistic to provide the necessary deterrent.

I also welcome the inbuilt guarantee in the Bill that, where the Minister wishes to extend the classes of workers to which the Act will apply, there will be maximum consultation right across the board, particularly with the two main parties involved in this — the workers themselves and the employers. It is a good Bill and a positive Bill. A very positive aspect is the introduction of the time off provision in lieu of overtime. It is a Bill that will be hotly debated. The Minister is a very reasonable person and whatever changes are seen as being reasonable in order to adapt this Bill to provide a framework for future years to determine the normal working week will be accommodated by the Minister and the Minister of State.

Mrs. Honan

I have not the warm welcome that my colleague, Senator Hillery, has for this Bill. It is not the first time I am out of step with some of my colleagues on this side of the House while always out of step with my friends on the other side.

It is difficult for me to make any worthwhile assessment of this Bill. We seem to be talking over and over again about unemployment and employment and creating jobs. For the life of me I cannot see how the Minister will create more jobs under this legislation. I would ask how many jobs might be lost when he is finished, if he gets to implementing it at all. It is not legislation that in fairness could be supported by the real members of the Labour Party. There is of course confusion about who the real people are in all parties at the moment but I suppose Senators will hear more about that later on.

This Bill will achieve very little in helping to create jobs but it seems to be sufficient for this Government to give the impression here and in the media tomorrow that they are talking about creating jobs. They seem to be quite happy that they have done another PR job and we are talking about creating more jobs, even though since this Government came into office we have, I understand, about 45,000 people extra on the unemployment list.

Are the Government satisfied that the unions are happy about this legislation? Do they know that the FUE, the employer side, are happy with this legislation? It is important to say, even though the Minister is not here, that this was not just thought up by this whizz kid Coalition Government of young Ministers. We had good Ministers for Labour in Fianna Fáil and this kind of legislation finished up in the dustbin. Their judgment an odd time is right and I am sure it was quite right on that.

This Bill will shorten some working hours, therefore giving less in the pay packet of workers. What will we have then? We will have more women going out trying to balance up the wage packet to pay for food and clothes, not to mention the VAT which the Minister for Finance saw fit to impose in his budget. There will be extra persons looking for jobs when the pay packet of the man in the house has been lessened. People will be trying to have two jobs in a house rather than one.

It is grand to come in here to the Upper House and make a big speech about job creation on the Second Stage of a Bill and go out and say they all swallowed it. Where are the jobs in this legislation? Maybe I am not as bright as the rest of my colleagues. I understand inspectors are to be appointed to see that this works. I suppose that again is jobs for the boys and the girls. That is not creating jobs for the young people. It is another exercise of this Government's practice whereby one day they are creating corporations and another day they have this kind of legislation dealing with the problem of unemployment. There are no jobs that I can see in this legislation. Maybe by the time the discussion is finished I will be convinced about where jobs are being created.

Certain categories of workers have been singled out, such as those in transport and health. Does the Minister not see trouble there? Will this not be another problem of where to draw the line? Does he not see trouble in giving that kind of concession to certain workers? He referred in his speech to those engaged in transport of persons or goods and those in essential services. Where do you draw the line in regard to essential services? Will there not be, as in the case of other Bills the Government have brought in, grey areas, blue areas, white areas and red areas? I do not know really. The unions and the FUE, the employers, are deeply concerned about being pinned down to certain hours of work. There are certain industries — thank God we still have some left, while we keep closing them down, at least four a week — that have to have overtime to get their products onto the export market. They are not in the grey area for which there is to be an exception. If a flexible approach is adopted, this legislation may be undermined. On the other hand, if a tough approach is adopted, trouble could be caused in the industries to which I have referred.

I have spoken previously on job sharing and I understand that it has worked. It is something that should be looked at again with a view to introducing it in other areas. I cannot say that I am enthusiastic about the Bill before us. I am glad we are not taking Committee Stage this evening. It will give us a chance to take the Bill section by section. I would appreciate very much if the Minister, who may have thought up this brainchild, were present to listen to our remarks on Committee Stage. I am sure there will be amendments tabled by the time it is decided to take it. I cannot say that I wish the legislation well. I do not feel that way about it. I am not convinced that there is one extra job in the legislation. I do not know how it got here with a Coalition Government with good Labour people in it.

Mr. Kirwan

Not for the first time I substantially share the views expressed by Senator Honan. Like her I have little enthusiasm for the content matter of the Bill. I was not in the House when Senator Hillery made his observations, but I listened carefully to Senator Honan's reaction to those observations. I was rather pleased to conclude that my first criticisms of Senator Hillery were well founded. In effect when it comes to discussing legislation which is essentially related to industrial relations, he is a refugee from the halls of academe, one who sits in comparative comfort and exercises and weighs judgements on matters on which he will not be asked to prove himself in the market place. I am pleased that it is agreed only to take Second Stage and that Committee Stage will afford those of us who wish to avail of it the opportunity to put down amendments to the Bill.

I am aware that acute dissatisfaction has been expressed to the Minister by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Despite protestations that consultation has taken place and will take place, it would appear that the level of that consultation was hardly of sufficient strength to cause the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to view the Bill with any degree of comfort. They have asked me to table a substantial number of amendments to the Bill, which I propose to do on committee Stage. One's perception of the Bill can be highly coloured when regard is taken of the fact that it is one of the rare matters on which employers and trade unions take the same view. Both employers and trade unions have criticised the Bill substantially as being in need of further distillation in order to make it palatable to those to whom it refers. As an aid or a panacea for the unemployment problem it fails miserably.

Throughout legislation which has connections with employment there has always been, and I have no doubt there will always continue to be, a heavy emphasis of dependence on the private sector. I have not heard anything in recent months to convince me that the Government have shaken off their Victorian approach to the dignity of work. It appears that the Government no longer regard themselves as being under the obligation to provide any of our citizens with employment.

I would remind the House that however powerful the trade unions may be — I would hope that they are as powerful as I think they are and that their strength will continue to grow — nevertheless we have not been able to stop the emigration of Ranks, Dunlops or Fords. These people stand as milestones to the dispassionate approach to the employment situation by the multinationals whom we have lauded in the past. I do not intend to speak at any great length on the Bill, but to reserve what I have to say to the amendments which I propose to move on Committee Stage.

Mr. Cregan

There are just two points I would like to make. I am surprised that there is an impression coming from the House that there are objections from the employers and from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. The Bill, while I would have reservations about it, is an effort to create employment. It is questionable whether it is doing the right thing but we must readily admit that there are areas of work where an opportunity exists to create employment. The Bill is really asking whether we can create something for somebody who is not working while asking the person who is working to get so much and leave it at that.

I do not think the Bill is preventing people from working overtime when they have the opportunity, but overtime is the area that I would like to question most. How does one define overtime? To me, work from 5.30 onwards in a factory is overtime. There are several cases in the Cork area where there were redundancies in particular plants. Within one month of the redundancies the reduced workforce were working overtime. How can I stand up here as a public representative and say that the State had to pay back 60 per cent of redundancy payments to one company, while less than two weeks later that company were bringing in the reduced workforce on a seven-day week? Nobody could ask them to take back for the two days the workers who were laid off. Out of a workforce of 66, 17 were laid off, and less than two weeks later the same company had the remaining workforce working seven days. Above a certain income level the worker pays approximately 65 per cent tax, so he gets 35 per cent of his wage for working the two extra days. The worker may say he does not want to work it because it is not worth it. Is it not possible to have a situation where we allow the 17 workers who were laid off to work the two days and get the full rate for it? It would cost the State less. Can that situation be brought about? Can we create something like that since the person who is already working is getting enough? People are readily admitting to me, and I am sure it must be said at trade union meetings and between workers them selves, that it is not worth working overtime because of the tax situation. How do we answer that? Is this Bill saying that?

How do we deal with the question of part-time workers? An employer has no right to employ anybody on a part-time basis if he is unemployed. He is breaking the law if he works more than a certain number of hours. I know of several employers in Cork city who want part-time workers but the people they employ must already be employed. How stupid can we be? How silly can we be? How can anybody stand up and defend something like that? It may not be for 40 hours or even 20 hours but we could be creating 16 or 18 hours work for people who are not working at present.

Whether we like it or not, the first priority must be some form of employment. Young people and those who have been made redundant in Dunlops and other places have been saying to me that they will do any type of work so long as they can say to somebody else that they are working. In some houses there are three of four young people without jobs. We must provide them with some type of work, even if only for 20 hours. People are objecting and saying that we should not do it, yet the person who is already working overtime says he is not getting enough for it. He does not want to do it but if he does not do it the production will not be on time. Which is the priority? How many people in Cork city alone are employing people on a part-time basis?

The Minister mentioned the question of hotels and bar work and shop work on Fridays and Saturdays. In O'Connell Street in Dublin they wanted to create something and they were not allowed. People were not allowed go to work, even on a part-time basis. These people could have said they were working, maybe on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. What is wrong with that? Because they must work the 40 hours between 9 o'clock and 5 o'clock they are deemed not to be working. That is the problem. In this country if you are not doing a particular thing like everybody else you are not doing it at all. Employers must have the right to employ part-time workers on a legal basis. It must be legalised. After so many hours working on a part-time basis an employer can be summoned for giving these people wages. I do not see any reason why we should not change this position.

If work is available it must not be the case that some get it all but that the majority of young people get nothing or that any person who is not working must look out for himself. If there is work available it must be given to the greatest number of people. I make no apologies to anybody for saying that.

Mr. Ellis

While in theory this Bill would seem to be the answer to some of our problems and the Minister hopes that it will create 3,000 additional jobs, my opinion is that this Bill will not do anything for the unemployed. Let us start with the legislators. How many of them are working only 40 hours a week? Everyone here no doubt works a lot more than 40 hours. Many of us are involved in business outside or are involved in careers in teaching or other professions. Whether we admit it or not we would be breaking the law as it is proposed. I would have it broken by Wednesday evening at least in any week.

We are looking at this as a Bill to prevent overtime, but many businesses are not able to provide for the extra staff that would be required to prevent overtime. Their business may not allow sufficient work or they may find that their employees have to work ten or 15 hours a week overtime. Overtime of 55 hours a week will not create two jobs; it will only create 27½ hours a week and that will bring it back to the part-time employment of which Senator Cregan is talking. Indeed it might reduce employment because the employers might decide to operate a type of black economy which would be created by this Bill where they would pay the person under the counter and not allow for it. In doing so they would avoid paying tax and PRSI. At least where somebody's overtime is properly written up and properly charged on their time sheet the State is getting the tax and the PRSI which is due. If we have legislation which stipulates a maximum number of hours, we will find that employers will write up to the maximum number of hours allowed and pay the person under the counter for the extra hours he or she works.

The Minister's Bill is unworkable. People will fiddle to keep themselves within the regulations. At the moment we see it going on. We have a black economy which in Europe is second only to that which is purported to exist in Italy. I do not believe that this legislation will do anything to clean up our own black economy. It will not do anything for the young people who are looking for jobs. I am beginning to wonder when we are going to tackle our main problems. Overtime is being forced on people. It is being forced on people to meet mortgage commitments and other family commitments, otherwise they would not be able to meet their repayments. In many cases people will not go to work unless they feel that they can get a certain amount of overtime per week. It is a common fact that people need this overtime or need a second job to pay for their commitments.

I would like to see the Minister make some sort of examination of the position with regard to working wives whose husbands would be in a position to maintain them and their family. It is a far more pressing legislative matter to do something about the problem of families where both husband and wife hold good positions and leave somebody paid at a very low wage to mind their family while they are both at work. If the Minister is serious about doing something about unemployment, this is one area he must look at as well as looking, in conjunction with his colleagues the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Social Welfare, at the black economy. Because let us be fair about it — there is no way that this legislation will create one more job for the unemployed. I would like to know where the Minister intends to recruit the inspectors to carry out the necessary inspections. Will he recruit them through Manpower and will he recruit them from the Civil Service as it is at present?

Mr. M. Higgins

I want at the outset to reject very strongly the arguments put forward by Senator Ellis in his suggestion that a significant response to the unemployment problem would be the penalisation in any way of women who participate in the workforce.

Mr. Ellis

It was not meant as a penalisation of the women who work. It was a suggestion that the Minister should tackle the problem of families who have double or treble the income necessary for them to have a decent living.

Mr. M. Higgins

The question Senator Ellis has advanced would be answered very effectively in terms of a wealth tax or any form of direct taxation but, of course, such taxation measures have encountered the hostility and direct opposition, not once but several times, of the members of his party. To take this suggestion that the Minister should consider addressing the problem of multiple income — and Senator Ellis did specify working wives — the very worst response we could have to the unemployment problem in general would be that we would proceed, like people in a sinking boat, to throw bits and pieces overboard. Some of the last things we would want to throw overboard are the social legislative developments, particularly in the area of women's participation, that we have made through the seventies.

I have some sympathy with people who seize on strategies for the relief of unemployment in any respect. It is without a doubt the greatest single challenge which has faced us in the modern historical period. Indeed, I would argue that in the spring of this year, at the end of April, we reached a new historic level of impact of the unemployment problem in our society when for the first time the number of those who were unemployed, that is 216,000 at the end of April, was a greater number than the number of those at work within industry, which at the end of the same month was 194,000 people. In many ways this imbalance between those at work within industry and those out of work, in one form or another, challenges us in a new way. I would like to be very fair to this Bill. I do not think that the Minister, or the Minister for State in introducing it, suggested that it was a complete or a comprehensive response to the unemployment problem. I do not think either that he suggests that the main thrust of the Bill is aimed at job creation of such a magnitude as would make a significant impact at the level we would want on the unemployment problem.

The Bill should be amended in some respects. For example, the published opinions of the Congress of Trade Unions seem to be sensible in a number of areas and this we can discuss on Committee Stage. However, anyone who is knocking this Bill would want to be careful as to what he is doing, that is, disposing of one of the instruments which could come to bear on the unemployment problem in the years ahead. The major impact on unemployment will probably be achieved when we have established an effective industrial policy and an effective employment policy.

The major reports that have been published in recent times, such as the Economic and Social Research Institute's major publication to which every member of the staff submitted an opinion on unemployment, the report of the National Economic and Social Council and the different other semi-leaked and officially leaked documents commenting on Government strategy, including the report of the planning board and so on, all have acknowledged the priority that the unemployment problem should be given. I welcome this because for almost a decade now I have argued for the inclusion of the unemployment problem as a main priority within economic planning. There is a well known and recorded debate between people who hold that view and others who argue that the principal purpose of economic management is the reduction of the inflation rate, for example, the reduction of the public borrowing requirement, the elimination of deficits and so forth. I welcome the new status that has been given to the unemployment problem.

To get to this Bill very directly, in addressing the unemployment problem as I have stated, the features of our industrial policy will be very important and I would share with you, a Leas-Chathaoirligh, and other Senators who have spoken, a certain impatience at our waiting for an excessively long time for an opportunity to debate industrial policy. In many ways, those who watch television programmes and heard about the leaked Telesis Report and so forth, have had a better opportunity of debating industrial policy than Members of either of the Houses of the Oireachtas, which I think is a pity. Within that industrial policy we will have to make clear political and economic choices. These are going to be very important. For example, it has been suggested in Killarney by Dr. Michael Killeen, and again recently by Liam Connellan of the Confederation of Irish Industries that the problem of job creation is essentially one of increased competitiveness abroad. It has been repeated more than once by the Taoiseach, and it is an opinion, by the way, that I do not share. I agree that increased competitiveness can bring more jobs but I think, no more than this Bill here, increased competitiveness with the present volume of production of exports will not bring you jobs of the magnitude you need.

What an industrial policy must specify, therefore, is the future pattern of productive activity within the economy, how to make the economy more productive, that will have the effect of creating jobs. For example — I want to be positive in everything I have to say about the unemployment problem in debates such as this — I would urge people to speak less about apportioning blame or scapegoating different aspects of the economy in productivity and to address themselves more to the future shape of a productive Irish economy. I have no doubt whatsoever that you will not be able to get the jobs that you need in the short term, medium term, or long term by relying on expanding traditional manufacturing industry. More and more, a greater number of jobs are going to lie in the services sector and the growth that will be significant for the economy, that will produce lasting jobs, will probably be in the high technology area and producing services that are internationally traded.

The word "services" is a word which I am afraid switches people off in this country and for some very good reason. It is time we drew a distinction between occupation in productive employment in services and employment in the service sector that is not productive. For example, at present of every 100 people productively employed in this country 17 work in agriculture, 20 in manufacturing industry, ten in building and related activities and 50 in the services sector. Of course, people examining the structure of employment within the services sector could immediately find unproductive expansions of employment. I imagine this is possible although I do not think there is any point in concentrating on that. I have specified what I believe is an area within industrial policy which could yield employment. In getting to that point there is an important distinction that needs to be drawn.

I listened to the Leas-Chathaoirleach talking about the effects this Bill will have on income and I feel it will be necessary for us in devising an industrial policy and an employment policy to at last draw a distinction between two quite separate problems, and I hope this Bill is a step in that direction, and that is the distinction between problems of income and problems of employment creation. It is important to draw that distinction because at the end of the day anybody who favours legislation such as this would not want to drive people, as a result, into the ranks of the poor. One would like to sustain household income even if I happen to think that "herself" has the right to work as "himself" has but let us call it household income so as not to provoke that issue again.

If you want to sustain household income there is one kind of problem. Anybody who suggests that you can manage a direct fit between job creation and income distribution is not talking very convincingly at the present time. Now this is not, to take up Senator Kirwan's challenge, a mere academic speculation. For example, it is calculated that you could create a job in 1960 at a cost of £5,000. The new investment to labour ratios have changed so much that by the end of the nineties it will cost £500,000 to create a job. I am sure nobody would want to end this century with the suggestion that only those who have jobs are entitled to income. The biggest problem about unemployment is undoubtedly the question that when you lose your job you lose income, you lose consumer expenditure power, you lose the capacity to meet your needs and, very significantly, you lose status within the society in terms of the terms in which you participate. The question of income distribution is one that will challenge politicians of all parties. It is a question of how to meet the needs of a population that we should regard less as a problem than as a resource and how do you dispose of income across this? If you are going to have fewer jobs then you are going to have units of income distributed throughout the society. It becomes important to allow people an opportunity to participate in what will be regarded as work not, I suspect, at the end of this century but at the end of the next decade.

For that reason — and I rarely welcome sections of Bills — I welcome the section of the Bill that makes it possible for people to balance activity spent within productive paid employment regarded conventionally as work and other activities. In that we have a clue to the future. If we are to have a productive economy and a satisfying society at the end of the nineties we will have to accept the fact that the activities the people are speaking about will be characterised by new relationships between productive work, between education for example and leisure. This is all very good. How could it be regarded as acceptable in a democracy that people would have exhausted all their opportunities to participate in education by the time they were 21 years and that they would spend the rest of their lives working, as it was conventionally called, excluded from the possibility of entering institutions that were paid for by their taxes and so forth? We have often made this case when discussing adult education.

I do not want to be accused of involving myself in an academic speculation about the year 1990 or the year 2000 to the exclusion of a concern for the 216,000 people who were unemployed at the end of April. I will have a word to say about that in a moment, but I want to state emphatically that it is only the most mindless of people who would not be speculating on what the shape of society will be at the end of the decade and at the end of the farther decade. We have to think about that and we have to accept the fact that we are not uninfluenced by the applications of technology in industry and the world of work. We can live with some old daft notions.

I will give you an example of a favourite prayer in this country. It comes from the Federated Union of Employers on regular occasions and from the Confederation of Irish Industries as though in chorus, "If only the atmosphere was conducive to investment, if only we could create an external environment we would, in fact, have investment and we would have jobs. We would wake up one morning and we would have job creation going on". Unfortunately, one report after another — I am aware of a recent one in University College, Dublin — has shown that the best incentives in the world will not dislodge money from its little hoarding layers in the Irish banking system into anything like venture capital. Even when, in the Finance Act, there are some suggestions as to how to move it into more productive usages a scream has gone up. "You have not guaranteed us against loss". These are the entrepreneurs. In another place I drew a distinction between the "entrepreneurs" of the sixties and the "entrepreneurs" of the seventies. I have never understood the distinction other than a change in accent. But the argument remains the same, and there is no historic evidence whatsoever that they have any natural flair for expansion or risk-taking. The banking system is by and large a glorified money box, with few capacities within it for investing in Irish venture capital. I do not want to get irritated or to irritate other people by getting caught on that one. I will give it as an example of a mantra.

Mr. Smith

You need to keep to the subject.

Mr. M. Higgins

It is a mantra, it is a repeated something or other to tell you that you are concerned about unemployment. You say "keep changing the external environment"— I hear this so often —"an investment will occur and this will lead to jobs". Then there is a competing prayer coming from the other side: "If competitiveness is improved, exports will improve. Dá bhrí sin we will have more jobs". With the greatest respect, it deserves a little deeper analysis. I believe that the electorate, people who are parents, young people and people of all ages, are entitled to an answer as to what the different political parties are saying about the unemployment problem. I repeat what I said, that at the end of the nineties and later the economy, if it is to survive effectively and productively, and it can, will be one in which it will have defined an area within industrial policy in which it can make a contribution at international level. This will be overwhelmingly in the services sector. In agriculture there is room for very effective growth, for example within the food industry as opposed to rather simplified agriculture. What has all of this to do with this present Bill?

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I was just going to ask you, Senator Higgins. At times you confuse me, but I am totally confused by you now.

Mr. M. Higgins

I am delighted to elucidate for you, a Leas-Chathaoirleach. I was addressing myself to what I hope was not a distraction in your own contribution, in which you were addressing the problem of unemployment rather generally. I was suggesting that we will need debates in the House on industrial and employment policy to deal with those generally.

I will now turn to the direct terms of the Bill itself. As I said in my opening remarks this Bill has to be seen in the context of that argument. When we will be looking at the different measures that are appropriate — I mentioned the medium and long term industrial policy and employment policy — there is no doubt whatsoever that we will have to remove obstacles to enable the maximum number of people to have access to what employment opportunities are there. I have acknowledged that there is some merit in many of the amendments that will come up on Committee Stage on this Bill, that it can be improved so that it will not impede people's access to work. I am very worried about a point raised by the Leas-Chathaoirleach, that it would not have the effect of reduced household incomes. This is something we can take up again. The question that is important to my mind is that it is not throwing in the towel in relation to unemployment. I emphasise that. It is simply an acceptance of the shape of the industrial future. You will need to have legislative instruments that have been amended or are so flexible that they will enable you to respond to the conditions that will arise. I have said that I welcome in particular that section which enables people to balance new time budgets between the world of work, the world of education and the world of leisure. I would remind the opponents of this Bill that in the 19th century there was a wideapread hostility to people being free from work other than for reading the Bible once a week on Sundays. We have made progress in undoing what were disgraceful views towards working hours and towards the exploitation of people and so forth.

If we acknowledge the importance of income maintenance at the same time as we consider measures like this, then such measures will be good. There are many capacities in it. I said I gave a qualified welcome, indeed I can give a rather general welcome to this Bill, with some reservations. That is a more accurate expression of my attitude towards it. I do want to say that I hope too much is not made of it. It is a very small measure. It would be wrong to dress it up in anything more. To give an example, if you lock the question of working hours in an inflexible way to the question of income, if you say to people: "You will live on what you get in your wage packet every week" then this Bill will fail in many of its measures and many of the results and consequences it will bring about may not be valuable. If you reduce income the imbalance between the top 5 per cent who have access to income and the bottom 5 per cent will grow larger. Equally the question of access to education will become worse because you will have less money to spend on education, you will have less access to other things in life and so forth. If, however, you are willing to see the connection between income and the cost of services and the transfer system of society as being willing to be broken away from the workplace, then this Bill is nothing but good. It gives you flexibility, it enables you to do other things, many of which are very good.

With regard to the question of the exceptions, it is a good idea that, after consultation with employers and employees, one should be able to add to that list of exceptions should it become necessary.

I want to finish by saying something about the question of the black economy. When we think of the way people will live in ten and twenty years' time we need to realise, for example, that one of the advantages, if the context is right, that could come from the Bill is that we will not see people in the same jobs for most of their life with the same level of training. The decades that we are entering are ones in which people will be re-training themselves, people will be re-training for different occupations and different emphases on the world of work. They will need time to leave the world of work and re-enter educational establishments and institutions. It is imporant that we acknowledge this.

In regard to the opposition to this Bill, I quite understand the impatience of those who want an effective answer to the unemployment problem. I equally understand people who feel that it may have a detrimental effect on income. I can take those on board but having borne all those things in mind should the context be right I have no doubt that it would be a significant addition to the armoury of flexible instruments that we will need for balancing new forms of activity between work, education and leisure in the decades ahead. For that reason I think if we are willing to put the amendments in on Committee Stage, which makes sense, and if we are willing not to demand too much of this Bill I think it could be a welcome reformation of the whole nature and structure of work. It is too negative entirely to dismiss a Bill like this by simply saying we will not touch matters like this until we have begun to deliver on job creation by the conventional measures. Making changes like this is a necessary short term response. It is something we can do within a legislature that will have an effect, I believe, on the unemployment problem. For those reasons I broadly welcome this measure.

Mr. B. Ryan

I am sorry I was not in to hear the entirety of Senator Michael D. Higgins's contribution. I suspect that if I had I probably would not have to stand up at all because it would have reflected a large part of my own views. Whether that is a compliment to Senator Higgins I do not know.

I agree with the last thing he said. It is far too simplistic for many people, who would describe themselves as being on the radical left, to dismiss any idea such as this being irrelevant because it does not tackle the central problem. There is a need in talking about this whole area of the relationship between work and income to look not at a kind of nineteenth century model on which — though I have not read him in any great detail — I understand most of Marxist analysis is based but to look at a late twentieth century analysis which is based on an entirely different set of realities. There is a standard link — and I think many economists are still caught up in this — assumed between production and employment and between capital and labour which assumes that if further investment takes places automatically further employment will be generated. There is an assumption, for instance, that if demand picks up in this economy and world economy generally we will automatically have a resultant increase in employment directly in manufacturing industry.

It is quite likely, and there is some evidence from our own economy in the last year and in the projections for this year, that quite substantial increases in manufacturing output will produce no increase in employment and, in fact, may result in declines in employment for a reason that I will indicate. Most of our manufacturing industry has been operating below capacity in recent years, even those in the high technology areas — microprocessors, microelectronics and things like that — have suffered to some extent from the winds and the chills of the recession. However, now that the world economy is moving out of recession there may well be an increase in demand. The assumption is that that increase in demand will produce a consequent increase in demand for labour. I think it may well be the opposite, it may well give the necessary economic incentive to many employers in manufacturing industry to do the exact opposite, to invest in labour-saving high technology devices which it would not have been economical, because of cash flow problems, to introduce two years ago but which will now be economically attractive and which may result not in further employment but, in fact in a reduction in employment in existing industry. The consequence will be enormous increases in the capacity to produce wealth, quite unparalleled increases in the capacity to produce wealth, but no resultant distribution of that wealth through employment in the economy.

Since our taxation structure in the area of manufacturing industry is so favourable to investors as to virtually render them liable for no corporation profits tax we may well have none of that wealth being distributed within the Irish economy, and since there is an increasing trend for the profits from foreign investment to be repatriated to the country of origin virtually none of the wealth that is being created in this country from high technology modern industry may actually be available to the Irish people.

We must be unique in the world, for instance, in having had a 23 per cent increase in our exports last year and having had a 10 per cent increase in unemployment at the same time. It is quite an astonishing combination of facts that we can have that sort of volume increase while the volume increase in exports is around 13 per cent, if you take inflation away, and yet have an increase in unemployment. If you take in addition that exports represent close to 50 per cent of our gross national product and we had a 23 per cent increase on exports and at the same time had an overall increase in national growth of about 1 per cent it gives some indication of the astonishing decline in the other sectors of our economy that even with the 23 per cent increase in exports we are still actually in a major recession.

There are, therefore, a number of questions to be asked about the structure of the Irish economy and about how you create employment in the Irish economy which are not addressed at all either by conventional free enterprise, free market economics or indeed by the traditional left wing analysis of production and of economic development because they all assume a direct relationship between investment and employment which is no longer true. It is quite likely that, in fact, increased investment instead of increasing employment may produce the direct opposite and may reduce employment, more wealth and less employment. It is true in the industries with which I would have the greatest familiarity, which would be the chemical, pharmaceutical and other industries which is where the limited professional expertise I have would be directed.

It is quite likely that you could, for instance, in the future increase the productive capacity of many of our pharmaceutical industries by 100 per cent or 200 per cent and in the process of that major expansion actually introduce new technology which would result in fewer people being employed at the end than there were beforehand because the whole process could be further automated, modernised and brought under the control of a smaller number of people, so that a smaller employment force could actually be used to produce twice or three times the present rates of production. That is a problem, therefore, that traditional analysis from either the left or the right cannot confront. It is in that context that I think Bills like the present legislation must be judged in the context of a new reality of the relationship between investment and employment. That is why the Bill, though it is far from being the remedy to our problems, is a step in the right direction because it at least reflects an initial attempt to think about the new reality that will exist for the rest of the century. It would be utterly pointless for the trade union movement or the political left in this country to attempt to prevent the changes that are taking place in manufacturing industry from taking place.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I do not like to interrupt you, but we are on Second Stage of the Hours of Work Bill, 1984.

Mr. B. Ryan

I am sorry. I read the Minister's speech and it seemed that many of the things he referred to are things that I have just developed upon but I would not dream of disagreeing with your ruling. I will confine myself to the Bill.

The Bill is, I think, an honest attempt to move in a direction but there are a number of problems contained in it that I think need to be addressed. There is an assumption that all of those, for instance, who work in two jobs are the well-off, the prosperous and the wealthy. The trouble is that we may end up penalising those who have already suffered most from the recession by imposing fairly rigid restrictions on double employment and that many of those who are technically involved in two occupations, like many of us in this House, for instance, who have, as I have, a comfortable salary from another place of employment and also have a salary from this House, and many others in this House who are self-employed and have also a salary from this House are not covered by the provisions of this Bill.

I understand the motives and the intentions of a Bill like this but in terms of public perception of what we are doing, the proposal is that we will not be covered by the provisions of the Bill while somebody working for instance as an attendant in my own place of employment, a regional technical college, earning £120 per week and who works two nights a week in a bar is liable to be covered by the Bill. That is calculated to give further offence to those who have suffered most from the recession.

I welcome attempts to restrict overtime. Such a move has been a long term demand of the trade union movement but I have often wondered how sincere large sections of the trade union movement have been about this demand. Nevertheless it has been the official policy of the trade union movement, at least that part of it with which I have been mostly involved — the local council of trade unions in Cork. Consistently for many years they have been calling for statutory restrictions on overtime. I am glad, therefore, that some attempts have been made to restrict overtime but I am extremely concerned that a well intentioned attempt to restrict double jobbing would end up penalising, not those who can afford comfortably to live on one income, but those who are struggling to live on one-and-a-half small incomes. We will have to look at the provisions for double jobbing contained in this Bill when we come to Committee Stage.

I had a number of other points to make but in deference to your ruling I will leave them to another occasion.

Minister of State at the Department of Labour (Mr. G. Birmingham)

I will begin by thanking all those Senators who contributed to the debate. It has been a worthwhile debate, by and large, a nonpartisan debate, during which a number of very constructive and worthwhile contributions were made. For my part, I will consider very carefully the points which have been raised and see whether it is open to me on Committee Stage to introduce amendments to take account of some of the concerns expressed by Senators. In any event, Senators participated in this debate in an open minded fashion and I will be equally open minded when we come to Committee Stage.

I think it was Senator Michael Higgins who summarised his attitude to the Bill as being that he gave it a general welcome with some reservations. That is a fair summary of the attitude taken by the Seanad as a whole. Senator Higgins went on to say he hoped that not too much would be made of the Bill, that it would not be over sold. That is a very reasonable request. I do not want to be accused of committing that offence, of over-selling the Bill and making too much of it. It is a step and it is on that basis that I commend the Bill to the Seanad. Contrary to what has been suggested, I make no claim that the Bill represents a panacea for all our problems. Manifestly it does not but it invites us, first us as legislators, and then the community as a whole, to address ourselves to a question of some importance. That question is whether, in the present economic climate, the persistent and systematic working of overtime can be socially justified. I invite the Seanad and the community to say that they set their faces against that practice.

One of the strengths of the Bill will be not so much the specific detailed provisions but in a sense its educational effects in that it invites all of us to consider what approach we take to that question and to accept that equity makes demands of us in the present climate and that at a time when the amount of work available is limited, it is inappropriate that work should be concentrated in a few hands while there are so many hundreds of thousands without any work.

We do have some problems in meeting some of the points made by Senators, notwithstanding my desire to be open minded. I think it was Senator Honan who expressed the hope that the Minister who conceived this Bill would be present for the Committee Stage of the debate. The rules and procedures of the Seanad do not allow for the presence in the Chamber of the Opposition spokesman for Labour during the Committee Stage of the debate but this Bill's legislative origin was as far back as October 1980. It had its origin in the Second National Understanding for Economic and Social Development. In paragraph 16 of that document, the Government of the day gave a commitment to have discussions with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the employer organisations on hours of work legislation and to circulate the text of the Bill to reduce the statutory limit on working hours during the first parliamentary session of 1981 for early enactment.

I have no idea what happened subsequent to that commitment during the lifetime of that administration but since the change of Government, Opposition spokesman in the Dáil, Deputy Gene Fitzgerald has, on a weekly basis, demanded that the Government bring in this legislation as a matter of priority.

In considering the political history of the legislation, it is proper that I should say something about the response the Bill has received from the social partners. Listening to some contributions, one might have thought that the reception received was a hostile one. I do not think that would be a fair summary of the response of either the FUE or the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. It does not represent, most particularly, the position of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

Senator Kirwan commented that it was unusual to find a situation where the employers and unions found themselves united in unhappiness with the measure. It is true that there is a degree of unhappiness from both of those bodies. However, the Senator did not go on to say that the unhappiness stems from the fact that the employers feel the Bill is too restrictive and that the Irish Congress of Trade Unions feel it does not go as far as they would wish. At least we have established beyond doubt that that is the position of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions — a welcome in principle for the Bill but a desire to see it go further. On 11 April, 1984, The Irish Press summarised reaction to the Bill when it stated in respect to the reaction from the ICTU that although the Irish Congress of Trade Unions welcomed the Bill, saying it was long overdue, they regretted the Minister did not use the opportunity to reduce further the level of working hours.

That is a fair summary of their position: They are glad that the Bill is there but they wished that it had gone further. I know they are uneasy about some of the categories of work that have been excluded from the Bill and I have no doubt that there will be much to say about that on Committee Stage.

The fact that there is that response from the social partners, that the employers are concerned that perhaps we have been unduly restrictive, while the trade unions are anxious that we be more restrictive and go further, shows how delicate a task faces any Government in introducing legislation of this kind. Any move to re-organise working time designed to ensure that the existing pool of work is made available to more people requires the most careful consideration. Were working hours to be too rigidly controlled, this would have the effect of creating difficulties for employers, difficulties in regard to the efficient operation of their undertakings and perhaps difficulties in the matter of their operating costs.

What is required then is that we strike a balance. I am glad to say I was not the one to have to say that we thought we had got the balance right. It was Senator Jim Higgins who made that claim on my behalf. On the last occassion when I said that I thought that the Government had got the balance right in respect of a particular piece of legislation, I saw that Magill magazine quoted me as saying it and suggested that I would be better off out hunting for a job instead of being cocooned in Kildare Street.

I do think that we have succeeded in treading that path between the two dangers that faced us — the possibility that the Bill would be so open ended as to be ineffective and the possibility that it would impose unreasonable restrictions on enterprises and as a result do the very opposite to what we had intended.

Perhaps I could comment very briefly on some of the specific points made by Senators. Senator Hillery in his very helpful remarks referred to the positions of nurses and dentists. The position is that a decision was taken to exclude these people from the operations of the Bill because of the essential nature of the service provided. There are views taken that it would obviously be wrong to lay down limits in areas where emergencies can be so clearly anticipated and where of course human life in those circumstances could be at risk.

The fact that those particular categories of workers will not be covered by the Bill does not mean there is not the same obligation to address themselves to the social policy behind the Bill and to see how their working arrangements can be so organised as to maximise employment opportunities. The remarks the Senator made in relation to the possibility of work-sharing in that whole medical and para-medical area are appropriate and will be considered further.

Senator Honan was a little dismissive of the Bill, a little harshly dismissive of it. She suggested that it was improbable that the FUE and the ICTU knew very much about this Bill at all and wondered how they had ever allowed it to get through. Let me say here that the Federated Union of Employers and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions have been consulted very fully about this Bill, that there has been, in fact, an exhaustive process of consultation on the measures in this Bill. That has been worthwhile consultation. For example, one provision — it is proper that credit be given where it is due — that has received particular welcome from the Seanad is the proposal to negotiate for allowing time off in lieu of overtime. That was introduced to the Bill at the joint suggestion of the Federated Union of Employers and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Therefore, it is not the case that there was no consultation. There was consultation, very substantial consultation, as a result of which the Bill before the House is an improvement on what is otherwise might have been.

Senator Ellis was the other Senator who was particularly critical of the measure. I have to join at the outset with Senator Michael Higgins in rejecting the suggestion that any solution or any progress towards a solution in relation to unemployment can be achieved by targeting a particular group of people— married women — and suggesting that their exclusion from the workforce offers a way forward. It does nothing of the sort and it is not an option that will be considered by this Government nor, I suspect, by a Government of any conceivable shade that is likely to be elected in the future.

Mr. Ellis

On a point of order——

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Perhaps the Senator would allow the Minister to conclude.

Mr. G. Birmingham

On the point made by Senator Ellis that there is an opportunity to circumvent the legislation, that there is a possibility that some unscrupulous people will find ways around it, I do not deny that that possibility may exist but I very much hope that people will not be so unscrupulous. Anyone who is tempted to be so unscrupulous or to behave in such a fashion should not ignore the fact that the inspectorate of my Department will be enforcing the provisions in the Bill, that the Bill will give them substantial powers to enforce its provisions effectively and that the Bill also provides for effective deterrents against the sort of activity contemplated by Senator Ellis. I hope that anyone tempted in that direction will think twice about the matter and not proceed further.

Senator Cregan referred particularly to the question of employment on a part-time basis of people who are already in other employment. The point made by him is well taken and I can only say that I trust that the provisions of this Bill governing double-jobbing will help to improve the situation.

Very many of the other contributions took the form of saying that the Bill was welcome so far as it went, that there were particular aspects in respect of which individual Senators had reservations and that they would want to address themselves to those areas on Committee Stage. I began my remarks by saying that on Committee Stage I would be anxious to hear the views of Senators and to respond as constructively and helpfully as possible. I look forward to that debate and I thank Senators for their contributions on this Stage.

Mr. Ellis

The Minister miscontrued the position in regard to what I said. I said I felt, in regard to working wives, the position should be examined to see what could be done to improve the situation so far as possibly job-sharing or something like that was concerned. This would be an option that could be examined as far as working wives are concerned and where there is no family need.

Question put and agreed to.

Committee Stage ordered for Tuesday, 15 May 1984.