Vol. 224 No. 5
I welcome the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, to the House.
Before commencing I remind Senators that a Senator may speak only once on Report Stage, except the proposer of an amendment who may reply to the discussion on the amendment. On Report Stage, each amendment must be seconded. I call Senator Thomas Bryne on amendment No. 1.
On the basis of assurances that the Minister gave in the House on Committee Stage last week and, in fairness, on the basis of assurances that his officials gave me, subsequently for which I thank them, I am not going to push these issues.
I am not moving the amendments because the Bill does not facilitate compulsory deployment and does not override collective agreements in the public sector. Nobody will be forced to move job except on a voluntary basis, which I understand to be the practice. I do not want legislation that introduces an unfair system in the public sector. That is all I wanted to achieve with my amendments. I scrutinised the legislation for such a threat and have accepted the assurances given. We have had a good discussion here and the legislation will be robustly debated in the Dáil. Therefore, I shall not push my amendments.
I thank Senator Byrne. I can give the reassurance formally on the floor of the House that there is no compulsory redeployment implicit in the legislation. The provision was included to facilitate cross-sectoral redeployment that does not exist at present and to facilitate the PAS in its role. Senator Byrne has correctly interpreted the legislation. Respect for all of the agreements will continue and that has been written into the Bill.
Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 are related and may be discussed together by agreement.
I shall not move my amendment.
The amendment simply seeks to replace "or" with "and". For consistency, I spoke with the House about the approach to the Haddington Road proposals.
I have considered amendment No. 3 since we debated it here on Committee Stage. I was concerned that the provision, as drafted, could be interpreted as enabling PAS to decide, in a given case, to have regard to a collective agreement to the exclusion of the Minister's broader policy on mobility and redeployment within the public service. The amendment seeks to remove "or" and replace it with "and". That means PAS must now have regard to any sectoral agreement that might exist and the Minister's policy on redeployment.
The Minister has listened to the arguments that I made last week and I shall chalk it up. The changing of "or" to "and" is an important distinction because there was a danger that collective agreements could be deemed second class in the criteria listed. I am sorry that I did not spot the possibility because it is simpler than changing the entire wording. I thank the Minister and my party supports the amendment.
Sitting suspended at 4.55 p.m. and resumed at 5.35 p.m.
