Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 23 May 1991

Vol. 129 No. 2

Payment of Wages Bill, 1991: Second Stage.

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

Minister for Labour (Mr. B. Ahern)

The Bill before the House is of significant historic interest. Legislation relating to payment of wages reaches as far back as 1464. The legislation in force today spans the period 1743 to 1896 and is commonly referred to as the Truck Acts. The central purpose of these Acts was to stamp out abuses associated with the payment of wages to manual workers in kind. They dealt also with other issues such as deductions from wages and interest charges on advances of pay.

In recent times, the Truck Acts have been seen as a major barrier to the more widespread use of non-cash methods of wage payments. The Payment of Wages Act, 1979 sought to address this issue and was in some measure successful. However, that Act stopped short of a fundamental review of the Truck Acts.

Historical records suggest that some of the concerns about trucks in past centuries were as much about limiting unfair competition in trade as about protecting the interests of workers. The financial value to some employers of paying by truck was such that competitors were likely to go out of business unless they followed suit. Perhaps, before we consider repeal of the Truck Acts, it would be prudent to briefly review their purpose.

The Truck Act, 1831 consolidated previous legislation and was geared particularly towards protecting workers against employers who forced them to accept domestic goods and provisions from the company shop in lieu of money wages. The company shop itself was often stocked with inferior goods at inflated prices. Sometimes, as one contributor to the 1831 debate in the House of Lords pointed out, the employee was likely to have "thrust upon him more bacon or more flour than he had occasion for... The articles which were given to him in lieu of wages were frequently things which were perfectly useless to him".

By 1887, most employers were paying wages in accordance with the Truck Acts but other abuses had crept in. Employers were now, according to the Commons debates of 28 June, 1887, exacting "enormous interest and discount charge for advances, amounting in many cases to 300 and 400 per cent". The Truck Act of that year amended this loophole, among others.

Then in 1896, the last of the old Truck Acts was placed on the Statute Book. By that date further abuses which involved deducations made by employers from wages had become prevalent. One contemporary commentator suggested that many of the fines deducted by employers from wages were "of the most trivial description and so vexatious as virtually to amount to a system of slavery on the part of employees". The 1896 Act restricted the circumstances in which deductions could be made from wages and set out the procedures to be followed by employers in making deductions.

There is a widespread perception that the Trunk Acts outlawed the payment of wages by cheque. This is not the case. The Truck Acts allowed an employer to pay an employee by cheque, provided the employee consented and the cheque was drawn on a bank which was both licensed to issue bank notes and was within 15 miles of the workplace. Through an accident of history this provision of the Trucks Acts was rendered ineffective by the Currency Act, 1927. That Act deprived commercial banks of the power to issue bank notes and inadvertently had the consequent effect of making the payment of wages by cheque under the terms of the Truck Acts impossible.

Perhaps before moving on from this historical review, I should advert briefly to the Truck Act of 1743. This Act was passed by the pre-Union Irish Parliament which sat in Dublin until June 1800. It is, I believe, one of a few remaining Acts of that Parliament which are substantially intact on the Statute Book. The Act was the only one governing truck in Ireland from its passage in 1743 until 1887. In that year, the 1831 consolidation of the Truck Acts was extended to Ireland. The 1743 Act, however, was not repealed in 1887 as might have been expected and has remained in force to this day.

My own interest in the Truck Acts is of more recent origin, prompted by a variety of modern-day concerns about effective and cost-efficient methods of wage payments. Throughout Europe, there has been a clear move away from cash wages. Of the countries where figures are available, Denmark appears to have the highest level of non-cash wage payment, with 95 per cent of employees paid otherwise than in cash. Some other European countries, including Spain, Belgium, and the former West Germany, all report levels of non-cash wage payment in the range 75 per cent to 90 per cent. In the United Kingdom, the percentage of employees paid wages, otherwise than in cash, is around 65 per cent. Ireland is at the bottom of the league. An FIE survey some years ago showed that just under half of all employees in this country were paid by a mode other than cash.

Nonetheless, the move towards non-cash pay is gaining momentum in this country. In some cases, security problems arising from armed robbery of payroll cash, have been a major motivation. In other cases, the adoption of non-cash wages has been part of an attempt to harmonise the conditions of white collar and blue collar workers. The trend has also been facilitated by advances in new technology. Computers are now a feature of even the most modest business concern in the country. The efficiency, economy and security of computer based payroll systems have encouraged employers to adopt a unified system of wage payment for all employees. These advances have, of course, been a spur to change mainly on the employers' side.

There is, perhaps, just one persistent trend most affecting the attitudes of employees to non-cash wages. That is the significant change in banking practices which has taken place in recent years. The trend towards more flexible banking, longer banking hours and 24 hour automatic teller machines have all contributed to weakening employee resistance to non-cash wages.

Aware of these developments and the likelihood of even more rapid future progress, I published a discussion document in November 1987. The document examined, among other things, the options for repeal of the Truck Acts and for new legislation governing the payment of wages. The views of all the interests concerned were sought in the resulting consultative process. More recently, arising from the Programme for Economic and Social Progress, I undertook to finalise legislation which would facilitate the move towards non-cash wage payment. The programme committed me to the introduction of a wages Bill during the spring of 1991. I have, unfortunately, overshot this target — if just by a whisker.

A review of the Truck Acts has been long overdue. As we have seen, almost 100 years have elapsed since 1896 when the most recent of the Truck Acts was passed by the Parliament at Westminister. Not surprisingly, the Truck Acts are being seen, with some justification, as archaic and irrelevant to modern employment conditions. In some ways these charges are true. Certainly, the language of the Truck Acts and the bulk of their provisions are out of keeping with today's requirements. In other ways, the Truck Acts are anything but outdated. In some sense they embody an essential philosophy which is at the heart of the employment relationship — a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.

My purpose in this Bill is twofold: to put in place new provisions for the payment of wages which will meet current and future requirements and to repeal the Truck Acts which have outlived their usefulness. In doing so, I hope I have garnered for this Bill something of the essence of their philosophy and transformed it into terms which will be relevant to the late 20th century and beyond.

One view expressed to me in the course of the preparation of this Bill has been that the payment of wages is fundamentally a matter of contract law and, as such, should be left entirely for determination between the parties to the employment contract. In this view, the best legislative approach would have been simply to repeal the Truck Acts. There is a certain attraction in this approach, particularly if one is of the opinion that the employment relationship has progressed to a stage where employers and employees meet on an equal contractual basis.

Progress has certainly been made. However, I am inclined to the view, informed by day-to-day experience, that the employment relationship is seldom an equal one. Where unfair contractual arrangements persist in an employment contract, the employee may feel powerless to oppose them. There are, of course, good employers who do not exploit the employment contract by imposing unfair contractual arrangements. Equally, strong unions may ensure, through the threat of industrial muscle, that its members are not subject to unfair contractual provisions. However, important rights of the nature proposed in this Bill should not be in the gift of either a benign employer or a strong trade union. They should be available to an employee as a matter of course, as a matter of legal right.

My approach, therefore, has been not just to repeal the Truck Acts but to replace them with new and different protections for employees in relation to the payment of wages.

I have also taken a new view on the scope of wage payment legislation. The Truck Acts dealt only with the wages of manual workers. In general, there was no legislation governing the payment of wages to other categories of employee. The payment of their wages are mainly a matter of contract and common law. However, while there was no direct legislative protection for white collar workers, the Truck Acts would have benefited them indirectly. Any employer obliged to adhere to the Truck Acts standards in the case of manual workers would be unlikely to impose less favourable arrangements on white collar employees. Repeal of the floor of rights enshrined in the Truck Acts has thus raised issues relating to the protection of both manual workers and other categories of employee. I have decided, therefore, that this Bill will, for the first time, confer on all employees a range of rights relating to the payment of wages.

There are three basic rights enshrined in the Bill — the right of every employee to a readily negotiable mode of wage payment; protection against unlawful deductions; and the right to written statement of wages and deductions. The philosophical roots of the first two of these rights are to be found in the Truck Acts; the third is of more recent origin.

The Bill will facilitate the movement from cash to cashless pay which has advantages for employers and employees alike. For employees there are advantages in being paid through a bank account, through having less cash at risk of theft or loss and in having access to other services, such as a facility to pay bills by cheque or standing order, etc. For employers there are considerable savings arising from administrative efficiencies. Staff are not longer needed to make up pay packets and security and insurance requirements are diminished.

Some employee interests have suggested that the Bill should include a right for employees to time-off for the cashing of cheques. I think this is an issue best left for discussion and arrangement between employer and employees at local level, depending on the circumstances, like the location of individual firms the distance to travel and local services. The prospective savings of a move to cashless pay may encourage some employers to offer other incentives to their employees to opt for a change-over to some form of cashless pay. Initiatives by employers, in co-operation perhaps with banks and other financial institutions and in consultation with their employees and their unions, could in my view go a long way towards providing the necessary momentum for change.

I would like now to bring Senators briefly through the main provisions of the Bill. The Bill requires every employer to pay wages by one of the modes of payment listed in section 2. Basically the list covers all the widely recognised means of paying money — from cheque and money orders, to bank drafts, credit transfers and cash. Rapid future change in this area is to be anticipated because of advances in electronic data processing and other developments. I propose, therefore, to take power so that additional modes of wage payment can be added to the list in section 2, if and when new methods of money transfer are developed and gain public acceptance.

Section 3 repeals the Truck Acts. The section also provides transitional arrangements for employees currently paid in cash and for manual workers who have agreed to non-cash wages under the Payment of Wages Act, 1979.

Section 4 imposes on employers an obligation to give to each of their employees a written statement of wages and deductions. The statement must be given to the employee at the time of wage payment, except in the case of payment by credit transfer, when the statement should be given as soon as possible thereafter. The exception for credit transfers is necessary due to the nature of the technology. The employer is unlikely to know the time of the credit transfer in advance. Indeed, computerised credit transfers are often transacted electronically outside normal business hours when off-peak electricity is available.

Section 5 is concerned with deductions from the wages of an employee. The section prohibits an employer from making a deduction from wages unless it falls within one of three categories — a deduction which is required by statute, such as PAYE or PRSI; a deduction which is provided for in the contract of employment, say, pension contributions or a disciplinary fine; and a deduction to which the employee has consented in writing, such as trade union subscriptions, VHI premia or payments to a savings scheme. All other deductions are outlawed.

This section also contains further special restrictions which apply to two categories of deductions. One such category is where deductions are made in respect of either goods or services supplied by the employer and necessary to the employment. Included here, for example, would be the employee's contribution towards the purchase or cleaning of work clothes or the supply of transport to work by the employer. The other category involves deductions arising from the actions of the employee, such as disciplinary fines or bad workmanship.

Sections 6 and 7 of the Bill provide a complaints and appeals procedure for employees who have been subject to unlawful deductions. The right of complaint for an employee against an unlawful deduction is to a rights commissioner in the first instance. There is a subsequent right of appeal for both the employer and the employee to the Employment Appeals Tribunal. Section 8 provides for the enforcement of a decision of a rights commissioner or a determination of the tribunal.

Section 9 empowers the Minister for Labour to appoint "authorised officers" for the purpose of ensuring compliance with the terms of the Bill. The powers conferred on authorised officers are similar to those provided in other protective legislation. Section 10 allows the Minister for Labour to prosecute offences arising under the Bill.

Section 11 renders void any agreement which is out of keeping with the provisions of the Bill. Sections 1, 12, 13 and 14 are standard provisions relating to definitions, regulations, expenses and short title respectively. The Schedule lists all the Acts which it is proposed to repeal.

There is one point relating to this legislation which I would like to put on the record. The transitional arrangements in section 3 have been criticised on the grounds that the legislation does not go far enough in pushing the move to cashless pay. The arrangements are intended to allow an employee currently paid in cash to continue to be so paid until such time as an alternative method of wage payment is agreed with the employer. The arrangements will also allow manual workers, formerly paid in cash, who have entered into an agreement to non-cash wages under the Payment of Wages Act, 1979, to revert to cash wages in accordance with the terms of the agreement.

Critics of the transitional arrangements appear to envisage that the legislation would facilitate a move to non-cash methods of wage payment based on some level of compulsion. There are, of course, serious industrial relations and other difficulties inherent in such an approach. Equally important, perhaps, are the reasonable expectations of the categories of worker involved that they should be treated fairly in the context of the Bill. It is my experience also that undue haste may be counter-productive, particularly where a fundamental legislative change is envisaged. An incremental approach to change will often achieve its purpose more fully and more satisfactorily than any plans to accomplish an overnight solution, however well intentioned.

There are good economic and financial reasons for encouraging the move to non-cash wage payment, for the economy, for employers and, perhaps to a lesser extent, for employees. Like the critics of the transitional arrangements, it is my aim to help to effect a move to non-cash wages as speedily and effectively as possible. I have, therefore, looked in some detail at the case against the transitional arrangements but have been disinclined to accept it, for the reasons already stated, among others. The Bill, accordingly, reflects my considered position on this matter and seeks the approval of the House for the transitional arrangements.

To sum up, I see this Bill as a realistic response to a growing consensus in favour of change in the legislation relating to payment of wages. There are as many opinions as to how precisely this change should come about as there are interests to express them. I have had the benefit of hearing many of these opinions and they have all been constructive in shaping my thinking in relation to this legislation. My approach in the end has, I hope, been successful in framing a Bill which will provide a legislative environment that is conducive to the orderly and speedy transition to cashless pay.

I have accommodated the views of FIE and ICTU in my approach to the greatest extent possible. I am aware, however, that there are a few sticking points in the Bill about which one side or the other has reservations. Perhaps it is a measure of the balance achieved that both sides of industry, while assenting to the overall thrust of the Bill, remain concerned that the interests of the other side may have been given a little too much weight. I commend the Bill to the House.

I want to thank the Seanad for facilitating the introduction of this Bill in the Upper House. I promised some time ago where it was possible I would, at the request of this House, initiate legislation in this House. I wish to commend the Bill to the House and I assure Members that their comments and views will be accommodated by me to the greatest extent possible.

Mr. Neville

I would like to welcome the Minister to the House and to congratulate him on his initiative in introducing this Bill in this House. I welcome the Bill. It brings the payment of wages into the latter half of the 20th century and provides for a facility for payment other than in cash. The Bill repeals the old Truck Act of 1743, the Truck Acts of 1831 to 1836 and the Payment of Wages Act, 1979. The intention behind the Truck Acts was to safeguard employees who were engaged in manual work from abuses in connection with the payment of wages. There were three basic protections enshrined in the old Truck Acts: protection against payment in kind, protection against interference with a worker's freedom to dispose of his income as he saw fit and protection against unfair deductions from wages.

Section 1 of the Truck Act of 1831 required that wages be paid to employees in the current coin of the realm. The Payment of Wages Act, 1979, enabled wages of manual workers to be paid otherwise than in cash provided the employer and employee had signed a document for that purpose, or an agreement existed between the employer and the trade union representing the employee. The Bill before us establishes for the first time, for all employees, a range of legally acceptable modes of wage payment and regulate the types of deductions which can be made from wages.

The real purpose of the Bill is to endeavour to take large sums of money out of the way of the many robbers who plague our society today. It is accepted by all that this is a valid reason in the context of our times and, in fact, is a compelling reason for introducing this change. Opportunities for robberies must be minimised and the repeal of the Truck Acts is to correct the situation where large sums of money by way of payroll are being held weekly in thousands of places throughout the country and are providing easy pickings for robbers. In a survey within the past three years it was established that more than 30 per cent of employers are still paying their employees in cash. In fact, as the Minister said, 50 per cent of employees are being paid in cash. Most of the bigger employers are, of course, paying in cheque form. It is important that opportunities for the robbery of large sums of money be reduced because such funds are finding their way into the hands of people whose aim is to undermine our society, threaten the State and murder our people.

Under the Payment of Wages Act, 1979, agreement between employers and employees were facilitated for the non-cash payment of wages. If the agreements did not have a review clause the agreement had to provide for termination by either party with four weeks notice in writing. This Bill allows employers and employees to make open-ended agreements with regard to payment through non-cash methods, without the restrictions of the 1979 Act. In case of agreements in existance at the time of the coming into force of this legislation the arrangement for termination as the Minister has said, persists. Employees, therefore, may still rescind agreements, the employer being required to return to cash payment unless there is a new agreement made.

The survey which I mentioned indicated that 69 per cent of companies covered paid manual workers by cheque. All these companies are still liable to renegotiate these agreements. This could mean that many companies could have to return to cash payments unless and until they reach a new agreement. This is contrary to the spirit and the intent of the Bill and the Minister should reexamine this aspect.

This Bill will reduce the security risk attached to large scale transfers of cash involved in the cash payment of wages. It will help eliminate the risk to gardaí, Army personnel, employees of security firms and the employees themselves. It will bring the method of wage payments into the 1990s by enabling employers to pay employees by modern methods of monetary transfers — cheques, money orders, bank drafts, credit transfers and so on. The Bill will also reduce the inefficiencies in cash payment of wages; it will reduce the cost to companies of cash in transit insurance premiums; it will reduce the cost of security for such arrangements; it will reduce the inefficiencies in cash payment of wages by non-utilisation of electronic methods of cash transfer.

I welcome section 4 which provides for the giving to employees of an itemised pay statement at the time of each payment, or as soon as possible thereafter if wages are paid by credit transfer. The number of people we encounter in our advice centres who come for various entitlements — be they medical cards or family income supplements — who do not have a detailed summary of their wages, is surprising. Sometimes they do not even know the amount of their gross wages. They receive a payment each week and do not receive an itemised account of deductions. This is to be especially welcomed in that context.

Section 5 prohibits any deduction by an employer from wages of an employee unless deduction is required by statute, is authorised by a condition of the employee's contract or is agreed in writing by the employee.

Sections 6 and 7 provides for the procedure for employees to have unauthorised deductions from wages investigated by the rights commissioner and in the event of either party disagreeing with the decision of the rights commissioner the decision being referred to the Employment Appeal Tribunal to make a determination. I would ask the Cathaoirleach to allow me bring to the notice of the Minister the concern of the Employment Appeals Tribunal with regard to the procedure in redundancy payments. Problems have arisen from time to time with regard to the signing of the receipt for redundancy payments. This is on the RP2 form and it is often signed by employees, unknowingly, on the understanding that they will receive their redundancy payments. Unscrupulous employers subsequently draw the refund from the Department of Labour but do not pass it on to the employees concerned. They are, therefore, at a loss; they have signed a receipt and have no redress through the normal industrial relations law. The suggestion of the tribunal is that the receipt should be separate from the RP2, that there should be two distinct documents. This would assist, though probably not totally eliminate, the difficulty.

I commend the Minister for bringing this legislation to the House. I welcome it and look forward to its speedy passage through the House.

Mr. McKenna

Ba mhaith liom ar dtús fáilte a chur roimh an Aire go dtí an Teach seo agus comhgáirdeas a dhéanamh leis arís as ucht an Bille seo a thabhairt ós comhair an Tí seo. Taispeánann sé go soiléir arís an suim atá ag an Aire sa Seanad agus an Bille tábhachtach seo a thabhairt os ár gcomhair ar an gcéad dul síos.

I would like to take the opportunity to welcome the Minister to the House and to say how very much we appreciate the fact that he has brought this very important legislation to the Seanad on its first presentation. It shows again the interest the Minister has in the House. Whenever he can he brings legislation to this House and we very much appreciate that.

May I also thank the Minister for his historical exposé in relation to the whole area of payment of wages. It is interesting to note that the Minister is updating very old legislation. One particular Act, if I am correct, has been 248 years on the Statute Book. He is spanning almost 250 years in legislation with this Bill and is an historical day in the sense that we are updating legislation that has spanned a number of centuries. It is a characteristic of the man in that he set about doing these very important things. One might ask why some other Minister for Labour did not research and bring this legislation before the House before now. However, the Bill is very welcome here today.

For the first time the Bill will confer on employees, not just manual employees, three basic rights. One is the right to negotiate a method of payment. It specifically provides for payment of wages by methods including cheques, credit transfer, money orders, bank drafts and cash. Further methods can be added by order as the banking system develops. This is extremely important. There are also special provisions for payment during a bank strike and other industrial disputes which would mean that for the employees, who could not get cash value for normal payment method, facilities will be provided for them to do so and for the transitional arrangement for employees currently paid wages by cash or by a method agreed under the 1979 Payment of Wages Act. The central purpose of the 1979 Act was to enable manual workers to be paid their wages otherwise than in cash where both employees and employers agreed.

Some people have said that the transitional arrangements have not gone far enough and we are all aware of the fact that there are a number of people who are currently paid their wages in cash. When people are used to a particular method of payment, it takes time to adjust. We are all human beings and we all love to get our hands on actual cash, albeit for a short time. There is a certain air of expectation on pay day, whether it is Thursday or Friday, that we are going to get the cash into our hands. We recognise the fact that we may not have it for all that long but at least we feel it is ours.

There are a number of people who traditionally have been paid cash over the years. When an agreement is reached for the money to be paid directly into a bank account or by some other method there will be a feeling of anti-climax on pay day. Studies have been done in relation to employees and their attitudes and it has been found that their morale invariably is high on pay day. It is extremely important, where the changes are being made, that every facility be provided to encourage people who are at present paid in cash to have their wages paid by some other method. People have a mistrust or an antipathy towards banking institutions, etc. and in some ways that is understandable. Where large sums of money are being paid in cash, it helps thugs and criminals. Those people are very adept at finding out exactly where people keep cash.

It is extremely important that people be educated into using the financial institutions, whatever those institutions may be, so that the opportunity will not be given to individuals to attack and many cases seriously injure people in order to get their hands on money. It is important that the message comes out loud and clear. It is important that it should be made known that people are not keeping large amounts of money in their houses anymore. Most companies now have computers as standard equipment in their offices so the facility for transferring wages directly from a business to an employee's bank account is available. It is extremely important to encourage employees to use this facility rather than making them feel it is being forced on them. If this method is to succeed it must be seen that employees have the choice either to get paid in cash or by some other method. Invariably you will find that where the pressure is not being put on employees they will come around to that way of thinking.

In this modern age and with the move towards a single European currency, it is important that the facility we provide in relation to the transfer of funds right throughout the banking world, particularly in the European Community, is up-to-date. The younger people do not have a problem with it. Most young people have their own bank accounts. Moneys are transferred into second and third level students' accounts. They have grown up with that type of system so they do not find any difficulty whatsoever in using it.

For the next generation there will be absolutely no difficulty in relation to the payment of wages through bank accounts or whatever other method. The people we are concerned about are the older generation of people who traditionally have used cash as their method of payment in all sorts of ways. That is quite understandable. Going back over the years, people had this old attitude towards banks, that the only time you went to a bank was when you were in difficulty and that they really took you to the cleaners in terms of the interest they charged. Going back 20 or 30 years, people did not normally use the banking system except when they had difficulty and had to go with their cap in their hand to the bank manager and look for a loan, so a type of mistrust and apathy towards banks developed and persisted. That is quite understandable.

Many of the older generation hated and detested the fact that they would owe one penny to anybody. To have, on occasions, to go to the banks and look for money was against their nature. There is still that sort of mentality towards the banking system. What we have to do is to try to encourage those people in their own interest and in the interests of the whole business community to use the facilities that are there.

The Bill is extremely important in the sense that it is updating all the Truck Acts. Strange as it may seem, the type of payment in kind that the Minister referred to is not going back in history all that far. There are still situations quite prevalent in this country in which people are forced to take payment in kind for different types of work. They may get a certain percentage in wages but certain employers will very conveniently explain that because of X, Y or Z he is now paying them so much in cash and the rest they would get in terms of whatever type of barter situation exists. That still persists to an extent. People may not be aware of exactly what their rights are.

If this Bill did nothing else except highlight the fact for those people that they have rights and that they are not required to accept payment in kind for any work that they have done, it would be worthwhile. It is important to understand the reluctance of employees to protest because they feel that if they do not accept this type of payment they might be out of a job or might be threatened in some shape or form.

This is most progressive legislation. The Minister is to be complimented on the manner in which he has brought this Bill before the House. It is going to up date all the legislation in relation to the payment of wages. It is bringing the whole wages situation into the modern world and into the 21st century. I congratulate the Minister on bringing forward this Bill and I commend it to the House.

Mr. B. Ryan

I would obviously like to welcome the Minister. He is a man whose good taste I can increasingly identify with. He has very good taste in his choice of which House of the Oireachtas he prefers to introduce legislation in. It is the one I would subscribe to. His choice of where he likes to spend his summer holidays is another that he and I have in common. Indeed, I keep wondering is there some significance in the fact that the present Leader of the Government and, perhaps, the aspiring future leader, both have very similar tastes about where holidays can best be spent.

I found the Minister's speech fascinating. It was a little pathway through areas of the history of the development of labour legislation. A little bit nostalgic was the reference to legislation that was passed by the last and perhaps the only all-Ireland Parliament the State has had. However restricted its franchise, it was an all-Ireland Parliament which was taken from us under circumstances that are still very dubious.

On the Bill itself, nobody could disagree with it. I am not going to argue about the details and about the things the Minister discussed. I have neither the competence nor the wish to do so. There is a profoundly strong case on the grounds of security for non-cash methods of payment of wages. These things do not always operate as well as they should. I know of factories in the provinces where the workforce agreed to be paid by cheque, ostensibly in the interests of security and then on pay day they all signed a little mandate which despatched one member of management down to the local bank to cash all the cheques and bring back all the cash, which was hardly the purpose of the exercise. They got paid by cheque and then somebody else went off and cashed all the cheques.

The percentage of the workforce paid by non-cash methods is lower in this country than in other countries. It is not entirely understandable why. We have a relatively young population so we would have a relatively young workforce. If anything, the dreadful shake-outs in employment of the last ten years would probably have accentuated the proportion of young people in the workforce even more and therefore one would expect their willingness to be flexible would have increased. Yet we have, as the Minister said, by comparison with Denmark, a pathetically low level of the workforce which accepts payments in methods other than in cash.

It might be worth looking not just at the workforce and the employers but at the other side of the equation, the banking and financial institutions. Perhaps there are more reasons on that side of the equation for the reluctance to get involved in non-cash payments than on the side of employer and employees. It is very hard to convince a worker who works from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. that it is a good thing to be paid by cheque when the bank has closed an hour before he or she gets off work. It is hard to persuade them that it is a particularly efficient way of doing their business. It is very hard to convince people that an institution which does not condescend to open at any stage during the weekend is an institution one should deal with in terms of funding.

I have often said that if the banks were in the public sector and carried on as they currently carry on the cry would be to privatise them in order to make them more responsive to the customers because it would be identified clearly as being a characteristic of the public sector that they were so unresponsive to the customers' needs. I genuinely believe there is a whole series of matters about banking practices in this country which would deter the average citizen who is not involved with them from getting involved. There are some that are obvious and some that are not obvious — for instance, the very welcome provision in this legislation for an itemised statement of wages and deductions. It would be grand if my bank would condescend to give me an itemised statement of the charges and the basis on which they deduct charges and would actually not believe they had the right to deduct them from my bank account without getting my permission first.

There are a whole series of things about the philosophy of banking in this country which would seem to raise for the average citizen considerable reservations about payment of wages by methods other than cash. There is the extraordinary fact that one of the major banks, having introduced automatic teller machines, decided that their second generation ATMs do not accept deposits, which makes it that much more difficult for any ordinary citizen to get access to the institutions. The banks close at all the times most people need any service industry — for example, the late afternoon and lunch time.

The Bill is very valuable and worthwhile. My colleagues have said most of what needs to be said on it. I look forward to a day when we will have in the not-too-distant future a situation close to that in Denmark where over 90 per cent of the workforce gets paid by a method other than cash. The old cliché about the cashless society is more true than many of us realise. For reasons of personal security and also because of the practicalities of life, the days of people carrying large amounts of cash are decreasing. There are areas in the United States, I would suspect, where if a major purchase was made in a retail outlet and cash was produced there would be a considerable sense of shock and horror. The presumption is payment by some sort of plastic or other method. The cost to the consumer of these forms of plastic, of course, is another matter altogether. It would be wonderful, it would make life a lot simpler and more secure for many people and it would reduce the risks and hazards of major bank robberies if people were paid by cheque.

The legislation is most welcome and I congratulate the Minister on his continuing work to reform this area. I am particularly glad I know he is easy to persuade on these things that he resisted the blandishments of the free marketeers who would have left employees effectively at the mercy of the marketplace in terms of how they were to be paid, if at all, by their employers. I pay tribute to the Minister for recognising the fundamental fact that the best way to protect fundamental rights is to legislate for them, not to leave them to the marketplace. The Minister is in many ways the epitome of the Irish economic philosophy as described in The Guardian yesterday, as being a blend of some areas of fashionable orthodoxy, a large dose of pragmatism and a considerable belief in the value of consensus. If I were to put three terms on the Minister, financial orthodoxy, considerable pragmatism and a remarkable capacity to establish consensus would be three of his best qualities. This legislation and his belief in the way to encourage people to accept non-cash payment epitomises that. The legislation is welcome. It deserves a speedy passage and I hope it achieves the objective the Minister has set for it.

Mr. Norris

I would like very much to welcome this legislation. I understand we are only dealing with Second Stage today and not taking all Stages. Are we taking all Stages?

Mr. McKenna

If time allows.

Mr. Norris

That is splendid. I do not think there would be any difficulty about that. It is remarkable and interesting that although it is such important legislation there are, as far as I know, no amendments down to it. It seems to be legislation on which there is general agreement.

I would like to join with Senator McKenna—I have now advanced sufficiently thanks to Seomra na Gaeilge to be able to understand exactly what he said — in his expression of pleasure at the respect which the Minister demonstrated towards the House in introducing the legislation initially in the Seanad. I welcome the legislation and support it, and I look forward to the day when I will be as fluent in the first national language as Senator McKenna.

Let me also say that the Minister's speech was one of the most interesting I have heard. It was not over-elaborate, but it did take us through a rather fascinating period of history going right back to 1743. We are now dealing with legislation which until the passage of this Bill was still active and which was in use in an age when Jonathan Swift was alive as Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in this city. It is a remarkable example of the survival of some fragile legislative threads.

I was interested in what Senator Ryan had to say because only last night I was reading some very moving accounts indeed of Grattan's last speech in the old House of Commons in College Green where he appealed and spoke so passionately and movingly about the destruction of the Irish Parliament by the Act of Union. In the same book there was an account of the passage of the Bill through the House of Lords — I think it may have been by Macauley; it was certainly by one of the great British historical writers. He expressed astonishment at the ease with which this measure was passed and the lack of resistence, the almost suicidal opting for self-extinction, by people who had held noble hereditary titles — not, of course, all of them but at least some of them. This was followed in this compendium by an account in an English newspaper of how the Great Liberator, Daniel O'Connell, was brought on his release from prison in the 1840s in an enormous chariot, like a Popemobile, which stopped outside the old House of Commons, where he took his hat off in salute and gestured silently towards the House of Commons.

Therefore, it was a very historical perspective which the Minister gave us, succinctly and clearly analysing for us the conditions of work for ordinary people. It was principally manual labourers who were involved in the early Trucks Acts, but recent developments could disturb the situation for white collar workers and so on. I understand that what the Minister wishes to do is to establish some kind of harmonious treatment for all workers in this State.

One other thing occurred to me. I imagine — I suppose it is true — that these Trucks Acts, which have only been brought to my attention by the Minister in bringing forward this legislation, constitute the origin of certain common expressions — for example, "having no truck with", that somebody will have no truck with this notion of a contractual arrangement in terms of the paying of wages.

Clearly, what the Minister is doing is important and necessary, one of the principal reasons being the necessity for security in the transmission of money. It is a very regrettable fact that bank robberies and attacks on post offices and on vehicles that are conveying large cash sums throughout the country are now a commonplace of Irish life. I deplore the fact. When I was young — and that is not as long ago as some people may suppose uncharitably — a major bank robbery in the city of Dublin was an event that would cause a headline; now it is a small paragraph, something that is accepted as part of the ethos of the day, and I very much regret that. I think it has something to do with the disturbances in the northern part of the island which has conditioned us to violence in a most regrettable way. However, it is a fact of life and people are exposed to risk and danger; and anything that can obviate that by a further sophistication of the method of payment is to be welcomed. For that reason, if for no other, I welcome the Bill.

I would also like to say that it is important to congratulate the Minister on his very reasoned approach in this legislation. It is marked in every single line of the Bill. He has listened to various sources of pressure. Some people think he is not being authoritarian enough, that he has not attempted a kind of mandatory approach to try to coerce people into this process, which most people are agreed is necessary; but yet he has decided to lead rather than to push and I think he is absolutely 100 per cent right in this. It is very important that people should not feel coerced, that they should feel they have voluntarily embarked on this new form of receiving their wages.

I would like to point out that the Minister said:

It is my experience also that undue haste may be counter-productive, particularly where a fundamental legislative change is envisaged.

I think he is completely right. He is right not to force, to allow people to become acquainted with the advantages of this situation. There is question of doubt that, as life becomes more sophisticated, as methods of cash transaction involving computers and so on become more widespread, people will become accustomed to them, they will accept them as part of the normal daily process and there will be very little need to coerce people.

Of course, some groups prefer cash, and they are not in the manual working group. There are a number of professional groups who prefer cash in hand, and one of the simple reasons for this is that it does not register anywhere. It does not register with the bank and as sure as blazes it does not register with the income tax, the Revenue. I wonder if perhaps there are some implications here.

With regard to banking, the Minister is extraordinarily charitable towards the banks. He speaks of "flexible banking." I think that from the point of view of the customer it is very rarely as flexible as it might be; in fact, it is a lot less flexible in certain respects than it used to be. I remember the days when you got your own cheques back. We actually pay for them. I always assumed that I would be forever entitled to have them back to enable me to check my accounts and physically to possess the cheque, but all I get is simply a computer read-out that gives amounts and dates. It does not give me the direction of the payment, it does not say who I paid; and if I have been foolish enough, as I infrequently am, not to fill in the stub accurately, then I have no way of finding out. I have to say to the Minister that despite what he said about the banks, which is very nice and so on — he is not critical of them at all — I do not think that they are as consumer friendly as they ought to be.

I would also like to say that this Bill, although it is not coercive, is intended to lead people towards a more modern and sophisticated method of payment of wages. It will generate very considerable business for the banks. I have no doubt whatever that as this method of payment increases the banks will derive considerable benefit and I just wonder are they going to put anything back into the system in any way. The banks are benefiting from this. Is there any way in which they are going to become more flexible? They are going to make more money. Why do they not investigate methods of becoming more consumer friendly than they are at present in order to offset the advantage they will have?

With regard to this question of deductions, which is very important, I think that the provisions laid out by the Minister are very welcome and I do not imagine anyone would object to them. As an employee of the University of Dublin, this is in fact the way I have received my wages for a considerable time. I remember the feeling of considerable irritation when PRSI and PAYE and all these things were instituted, because the university extracted them automatically without consultation. There was a certain instinctive, knee-jerk feeling of resentment that here was the employer actually plucking something out of my wages without my being asked for my consent to it. Obviously, these are things that are legally required and I have no come back — although I may say that for some of the PRSI payments we get absolutely nothing.

There seems to be some kind of an anachronism there. I see everybody else around the country rushing to get in their false teeth, their eyeballs and their glasses, but for some technical reason I get absolutely sweet damn all and that increases my sense of grievance when these things are automatically ripped out of my pay cheque all the time. However, I have to say that I feel, as somebody who is well paid and who is, after all, a double jobber, it is only appropriate that I should assist those less well off in the payment of a higher rate of PRSI.

I notice that everything, apart from these statutory deductions, is prohibited, except for certain items that can be agreed in writing between the wage earner and employer. The instances that the Minister gives are: trade union subscriptions, VHI premia or payments to a saving scheme — all other deductions are outlawed. I presume that this would not outlaw the kind of thing that has proved beneficial in the past. I have not been involved in it myself, but I am aware of it happening and it is among a number of mechanisms that I have been reviewing in terms of fund raising. I would like just to explain what it is and perhaps the Minister could indicate whether this will or will not be outlawed; I presume it may not.

One of the major rehabilitation programmes approached one of the semi-State bodies with a plan to help them to generate money for a building programme. They said: "We need to get substantial sums of money. As usual, it is quite difficult to get this in a lump sum." I am not sure whether it was the ESB, RTE or Bord na Móna, but it was one of these big semi-State bodies. They said: "You get your wage packet every month. You get £410.15p or 11p or whatever it is. Would you consent if everybody in the group organised together by the unions consented to give them 10p or 11½p"— in other words, the odd bits and pieces —"out of the wage cheque every month into a fund for this worthy charitabel cause? It would be deducated automatically from the wage packet by the accountancy section of the operation, held for a year and then transferred to the charity." In fact, they generated enormous sums of money. I think it was on a weekly basis. Suppose, for example, you are getting 37p from 20,000 employees or thereabout every week, over a year that amounts to a very considerable amount of money; but the people who have decided they want to contribute in this way to a charity scarcely felt it, because it is just the lose change that you rattle around in your pocket on the way home on the bus. I presume that this will not be precluded from occurring again under the operations of the Minister's Bill and, if it is, perhaps he could just look at that. It is a very useful method of raising funds in a period of our history when it is actually quite difficult to raise funds even for very worthy charities.

I note again the reasonable and balanced words of the Minister in introducing this Bill. He looks at the long, historical panorama of the Truck Acts and so on and acknowledges that they have outlived their usefulness. But at the same time he goes on to say:

I hope I have garnered for this Bill something of the essence of their philosophy and transformed it into terms which will be relevant to the late 20th century and beyond.

This seems to me to indicate a very healthy approach on the part of the Minister with regard to the organic development of law; that where there is something useful and good in legislation even a couple of hundred years old a Minister like the present Minister will investigate this, seek out the principle and, although its operation may have been outdated and outmoded, seek to enshrine this valuable principle in new legislation. I congratulate the Minister on what I think is an excellent and timely Bill.

Mr. Farrell

I certainly welcome this Bill and I congratulate the Minister for giving us the background to it. It is interesting to know that legislation relating to the payment of wages reaches as far back as 1464. It is interesting to read also that the Truck Act of 1831 "consolidated previous legislation and was geared particularly towards protecting workers against employers." Indeed, times do not change, because we are told: "the company shop itself was often stocked with inferior goods at inflated prices." One contributor in the House of Lords said that a man could have "thrust upon him more bacon and more flour than he had occasion for...." There is no doubt that in those days too, there were injustices. At present wages are so large and so much cash is involved that it is a great temptation to criminals. Certainly if this Bill helps to stop that type of crime it will be very worthwhile indeed.

Senator Norris mentioned that people other than workers wanted some of their fees in cash. I do not think I could agree with that. I think the Senator is criticising people of his own calibre when he says such a thing. These are all honest-to-God people who are providing a service. Very often for the recipients of those services — oftentimes only £5 or £10 is involved — it is easier for them to pay in cash rather than write a cheque, because they just might not have a cheque. As we know, cash cards and hole-in-the-wall cards are more the in-thing now than the cheque book.

The Minister said in his speech:

The trend towards more flexible banking, longer banking hours and 24 hour automatic teller machines have all contributed to weakening employee resistance to non-cash wages.

I would hope, however that there would be a balance. We have high unemployment in this country and, as one who worked for many years without any union protection, I know that union protection is needed. But sometimes I feel all our regulations are loaded a bit against the employer. I would like to see a better balance there, because the employer is just as much a part of the whole system as the employee: one cannot operate without the other. The Minister told us, in relation to the Truck Acts:

In some sense they embody the essential philosophy which is at the heart of the employment relationship — a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.

The present Minister recently referred to the amount of absenteeism in this country; it is something like 25 days per worker per year. If we should find now that they may be looking for time off to go to cash a cheque and so on, that would be unfair. I know the Minister said that that is a matter for a discussion. We should look at that matter because so many working hours are lost that it is becoming nearly impossible for employers to keep going, particularly in the present tough times.

I welcome the Bill. I hope it will work successfully and that employees will accept wages other than in cash. The youth of today are particularly geared towards such a system. If you walk around any town or city you see queues of young people with cash cards for the hole-in-the-wall teller machines. For that reason, it should be accepted and I hope it will.

Mr. O'Reilly

I welcome the Bill. It is important to bring the method of payment of workers into the modern environment and to make the necessary adjustments to the legislation. Listening to the debate on the Bill I was struck by my memory of working in London as a student during the summer holidays. I worked in a variety of bars in London then. Apart from the general plight of our Irish emigrants in London, particularly those who left us during the fifties, one of the things that particularly saddened me was to see many of the people who worked in the building trade in London being exploited at their very payment level. They were often paid through their local bars or had their cheques cashed in the local bars. In that way they were exploited in a very real way and it still remains the case for many emigrants in London that they were exploited at this level. For that reason I thought it good that this legislation should be put in place.

I would make one comment. The Minister alluded to a friendly banking service existing at the moment. I think there is an onus on Government to examine the situation in relation to banking because I would be of the view, from practical experience and from talking to a range of people, that the banks are less than user friendly to the very ordinary "punter", to the very ordinary work person and that work person can often be exploited by banking and can be the victim of various charges which are totally beyond his or her comprehension. I would be concerned in that respect. It is interesting — and there have been many glaring examples of this in recent times — that the very big customers of banking, the mega-customers, will have attractive bands of interest, an attractive banking environment and can negotiate all sorts of things with the banking system, but the average, ordinary working person who avails of the banking service on a day-to-day basis has a much less attractive relationship with the banks. That is one thing that would concern me as we move into cashless payment and as we move into people being paid directly or by bank giro. It is an area that merits examination.

I welcome the legislation as an advance and as a system in tandem with contemporary needs. I only enter the one reservation in relation to the user friendly nature of our banking service. That is not to say that there are not individual people working at branch level in banks who are particularly helpful to individuals, but I feel there is a lot of difficulty out there for many ordinary consumers.

Éamon Ó Cuív

I dtosach báire ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an Aire go dtí an Teach agus fáilte roimh an mBille seo. I would like to welcome this Bill. It is very timely that we should break down the barriers and the differentiations, many of which were arbitrary, between manual workers and other type of workers. This was an artificial differentiation that has no place in modern Ireland. More and more I see us moving away from payment of wages in cash. This is desirable and I particularly look forward to the electronic transfer of wages whereby workers' wages would be transferred automatically to their bank accounts. It has very obvious advantages and one of these is that if you get your money in cash there is a temptation to spend it all, whereas if money is paid into a bank account people will tend to spend as they need to each week. There is, however, a problem about banks in rural areas. Restricted opening hours of banks are a monopoly abuse which will have to be addressed if the transfer of wages by agreement from cash payment to cheques or other payment is to proceed as fast as we would want.

There is no excuse for banks closing at 3 o'clock in the afternoon except for one day a week, closing at lunchtime for one hour and not opening on Saturdays. This, together with the provision of ATMs in rural areas will have to be addressed. ATMs are available outside many city banks. Since banks are going to be indirect beneficiaries of a move from cash payments to banking they should provide a comprehensive travelling bank service and ensure it is available in workplaces throughout rural Ireland, and organise schedules in such a way that such banks would be available where possible outside factories and other places of substantial employment on the day or days after the payment of workers.

There is a role for the post office also. In the review being carried out I hope post office banking services will be identified for development since the post office has branches in all areas and workers wages could be paid automatically into the post office bank which would mean their money would be available to them locally for the five and a half days opening time per week of post offices.

I would like to refer to two specific provisions in the Bill. The first is in relation to payslips. Every worker is entitled to a payslip and I am glad to see this provided for in the Bill. Every worker's payslip should detail gross pay, deductions and the nature of the deductions. It appalls me that some computer pay slips issue headings in abbreviated forms which the ordinary worker does not understand. I have been presented with such payslips by workers and have gone through the columns and explained to them the content of their payslips and how the final figure of net wages was arrived at. Is it now obligatory to give full rather than abbreviated explanations for deductions on a payslip? Every worker is entitled to a clear and concise explanation of how this net pay is arrived at. I welcome the fundamental provision contained in section 4 of the Bill.

The second provision I would like to question is where it is stated that deductions cannot be made at will. Is an employee precluded from making an arrangement with an employer regarding the deductions from his wages of the cost of goods purchased from that employer, under two circumstances; when the goods are charged at full retail value and, secondly, when the employer makes an arrangement to accept payment over a time longer than six months from the provision of the goods? This provision could pose problems where a builder's provider would provide an employee with a valuable amount of goods and would agree to take payments in equal instalments over a year subsequent to the provisions of those goods, but would in return cost out those goods at full retail value. Would the Minister clarify whether this would be a legally enforceable arrangement once it is entered into on a voluntary basis by the employee?

I welcome this Bill. The day of paying wages by cash will disappear as banking services improve and electronic transfer becomes the order of the day, particularly with the general availability of automated telling machines. It is desirable that we move towards what will effectively be a cashless society. The security cost saving from an employer's point of view is tremendous in regard to the transfer of large amounts of money. The State can expect a reduction in the incidence of armed robbery of payrolls. Guarantee of payment is confirmed in other Acts and people are at no risk of not getting paid if they accept a cheque or get a credit transfer. The old objections to paying people by methods other than in cash have disappeared and this is a forward step in the interest of employer and employee. Ba mhaith liom an Bille seo a mholadh.

Minister for Labour (Mr. B. Ahern)

I thank the Senators who contributed to the debate. The various contributions made and the interest in the debate is up to normal Seanad standards. I would like to thank Senators Ó Cuív and McKenna, as the party spokesmen, and Senators Neville, Ryan and Norris for their contributions.

As I pointed out at the beginning of the debate, the Bill contains several significant proposals not least of which is the repeal of the Truck Acts which date back to 1743. Senator McKenna was right with regard to the period covered. We are repealing legislation passed by our own Parliament in 1743 and by the British Parliament during the 1800s. Many of the provisions of those Acts are now outdated and in need of repeal but others have stood the test of time and have been adopted in this Bill.

The regulation for the making of deductions from wages is a prime example of that. This Bill goes much further than previous legislation in this area. For the first time all provisions of the Payment of Wages Act will apply to all employees regardless of the nature of the employment, the amount of service or the number of hours worked. When the Bill comes into force all employees will be entitled to be paid in one or more of the readily nogotiable modes listed in section 2 (1) and will be entitled to a pay statement and enjoy a right of complaint to a third party where an unlawful deduction has been made.

The application of this legislation to all employees, as pointed out by Senator McKenna and other Senators, is significant. It will help to lessen some of the class distinctions in employment which is one of the things I am pleased to do this morning with the support of the Upper House. Distinctions were made between white and blue collar workers in all the Acts over 250 years and go back to the year 1400 when Truck Acts first came into force. I abhor class distinction in employment and it is good to remove it from our legislation.

I am aware in repealing the Truck Acts that I am removing certain rights enjoyed by many workers for hundreds of years. Manual workers have long had the right to payment in cash, variously referred to in the legislation as ready money and current coin of the realm. I appreciate that some manual workers rely on that right to payment of wages in cash to this day. I am also aware that many employees retain that right despite being paid by a mode other than cash by virtue of agreements made under section 3 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1979. It is for those reasons that I included transitional arrangements in section 3 of the Bill.

I would not wish to impose by legislation a mode of wage payment other than cash on an employee who has been entitled up to now to wages paid in cash by virtue of a right enjoyed by many for several hundred years. Nor would I wish to remove from employees a right to revert to payment in cash by unilaterally altering arrangements and agreements entered into voluntarily and in good faith by them under section 3 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1979. The views of employers on this issue were made know to me in the course of the preparation of this Bill and similar views have been expressed in the House today. I have considered fully the options in this case and I am grateful for the support received from all sides of the House. I am convinced that in the interests of fairness and equity in the transitional arrangements as proposed in section 3, the provisions are right and proper.

I would like to comment on some points raised in the debate. Senator McKenna, among others, pointed to the various advantages of the Bill. Senators Neville and Farrell referred to the benefits of taking cash out of the workplace and thereby lessening the number of armed payroll robberies. In submissions made during the preparation of the Bill, many incidents of payroll robberies where the lives of employers and employees were put at risk were made know to me. If this Bill helps in any way — I believe it will — to lesson such risks to employees then the Bill will have made a significant contribution to many lives and to making the workplace a safer place. Regrettably, as mentioned by Senators on all sides of the House, fatalities, serious injuries and maiming of both employees, employers and customers have resulted from payroll robberies down through the years. When we have not had a robbery for a while people forget the danger but they are some of the main reasons for moving away from what might be seen as traditional and long term rights.

The reluctance of older people to accept non-cash wages and to use the banking system was referred to by Senator McKenna and others. I would join with the Senator in encouraging them for their own safety as much as anything else to make the transition to the banking system, whether it is to commercial banks, post office or whatever. There seems to be a move in that direction.

Senator Ó Cuív referred to post offices. They have done a good job and will continue to encourage people to use the system. I would also like to thank Senator Norris for his welcome for the Bill. The risks associated with the transfer of large amounts of cash is indeed one of the main reasons for the Bill. The Senator mentioned the role of the banks in this area and I hope that banking and other institutions, such as building societies, will be supportive of employers and unions who meet to negotiate new arrangements on cashless pay.

As regards the fundraising points mentioned by the Senator, I do not expect there will be any problem here when the consent of the people concerned is forthcoming. Here I refer to section 5 (1) (c) of the Bill.

Senator Ryan expressed surprise at the low number of employees who are paid otherwise than in cash in this country as compared with other European countries. The figures I mentioned this morning will have been highlighted in the media and will be a surprise to a lot of people but they are staggering. Some countries have 95 per cent cashless pay while in Ireland we are talking about slightly over 50 per cent although it is growing. Our major trading partners and competitors enjoy from 75 per cent to 90 per cent cashless pay, so we are a long way behind that. Indications are that there has been a growing move towards non-cash wages in the past few years and this move is perhaps facilitated, as Senator Ryan suggests, by our own workforce. A more recent Federation of Irish Employers survey referred to by Senator Neville would indicate a rise from the 1987 figure of 51 per cent. The extent of the increase cannot be determined with any degree of certainty but it is moving in the right direction. This Bill will allow employers and employees to make arrangements and agreements to make this change on a permanent basis. I hope they will use this Bill and I think there is general support in the Houses of the Oireachtas for it.

Senator Norris is concerned about the banking system and Senator Ryan made similar points. Most of us have had unsavoury experiences with banks. Those who have not, are familiar with the experience of others in that regard. Unfortunately the form of the banking system is not within my remit so I will not undertake that debate today. Senator Ó Cuív mentioned major developments in banking. Competition between the commercial banks and other financial institutions for banking type services helps towards more friendly banking for the future. There is not much point getting into a debate about how a worker who works from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. five days a week can cash a cheque if there is no arrangement for time off. I am sure our colleagues in the banking world will take account of that.

We do not want to be dictatorial but banks should look at the security implications of this Bill. Banks have great security problems and bank officials are always at risk in their workplace. Many city banks and some banks around the countryside have had at least one experience of a major robbery. Some banks that I know have had regular robberies. A year has not gone past in the last decade when they have not had to face bala-clavas, guns, picks and axes. They will be conscious of the reason for not putting further pressure on their own colleagues and on trade union colleagues in other workplaces that have to face the risk of a robbery. That debate is taking place and we ask them to do what they can to enable all staff to use bank facilities.

Senator Neville expressed fear that pending new arrangements under the Bill employers might be obliged to return to cash payments. The position is that the transitional arrangements of the Bill provide for the continuation of existing arrangements until both sides agree to an alternative. Therefore I do not expect the proposals in the Bill will lead to any demand for a return to cash based payments. Senator Neville made a point about the RP2 as used under the Redundancy Payment Act. I will arrange for the examination of the problem he referred to.

Senator Neville's analysis of the Bill was most welcome. I thank the Senator for that and I am heartened that he sees many of the advantages in this Bill that have been the basis for my decision to bring it forward. There are serious problems associated with cash wages nowadays and the Senator covered most of them — the threat of armed robberies, cost inefficiencies connected with the use of antiquated modes of payments and other difficulties already mentioned in my speech at the start and by other Senators throughout the debate.

He has also identified section 4, which provides for pay statements, as a significant provision and Senator Ó Cuív has asked me about that also. A similar section can be found in the Payment of Wages Act, 1979 but, as highlighted in some newspapers during the week, this Bill provides apparently for the first time for the case of an employer who fails to provide an employee with a pay statement. We are talking about unambiguous, clear, detailed, understandable statements and the fine for not providing such a statement is £1,000. It is a sad reflection that we should have to talk about fines in order to ensure that a person receives a pay statement setting out their gross to net pay for an honest week's work. I am sometimes amused that when taking action to protect what might seem a perfectly legitimate individual right some individual employers say the Minister or the Department of Labour are bringing in more draconian legislation which makes it impossible for employers to exist in a modern, competitive society. The matters I am talking about were talked about a few hundred years ago in the Houses of Parliament in College Green. The major draconian legislation I am imposing on employers insists that they tell employees what wages they are being paid and what deductions are being paid to the State. If anyone finds that too draconian, I am not sure where we are.

Senator Neville expressed reservations about the transition arrangements. As I said in my speech, I have nailed my colours to the mast with this provision. The bottom line is that employees who, in good faith, have entered into renewal contacts for non-cash wages with employers should not be deprived of a contractual and legal right by this Bill. Equally, I urge employees and trade unions generally to take the broader view and move speedily to the cashless option but people should not be occupied trying to find obstacles in this. This move will be beneficial and society has begun the move already. It may take a few years for people to follow it fully but we should not be talking about paying half our workforce in cash. We should get away from that.

Senator Ó Cuív raised the question of an employee who agreed with an employer to payment in kind. I refer the Senator to section 5 (4) of the Bill. Such an arrangement as he suggests would be possible but it would not be enforceable by the employer. Alternatively, the parties could use section 5 (1) (c) of the Bill under which the employee could consent to a deduction in respect of the goods in kind. The Bill is concerned mainly with money wages and if the benefit in kind is in addition to money wages as such it is excluded from the scope of the Bill by section 1 on the definition of wages.

Many Senators, including Senator O'Reilly, are concerned that I am delivering employees into the hands of the banks. I would draw the attention of Senators to section 2 of the Bill and it is a point on which we have to be careful. The list of modes of wage payment are wider than might be thought. For example, cash is an option. The facilities of An Post may be used; the Trustee Savings Bank which is not a commercial bank but a bank set up under statute by the Minister for Finance may also be used and this bank has longer opening hours than the commercial banks. We have taken the point about the banks and signalled the wider area. I hope that employers and trade unions and non-unionised workers, who form a significant part, of the workforce will realise that many options exist to conclude agreements quickly and move into cashless pay. Employers will be able to make the necessary arrangements for cashless pay with new employees coming onto the labour market.

I thank the House for being so supportive of this legislation. In 1987 we put forward a discussion document; it has been our practice in the Department of Labour to try to update our laws and we have spent much time on this. This Bill is the fruit of that work and it has been welcomed by Senators from all sides. There are no amendments and I would appreciate if we could proceed with the debate and dispose of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.