Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 31 March 2004
116 Mr. Howlin asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment when she intends to transpose the horizontal amending directive of 2002 and the other outstanding directives extending the cover of the original working time directive; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [10143/04]
View answerThe Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 transposed into Irish law the original Working Time Directive 93/104/EC. This directive excluded a number of sectors such as air, rail, road, sea, inland waterway and lake transport, sea fishing, other work at sea, and the activities of doctors in training.
The position is that the transposition in Ireland relating to the sectors and activities covered by the amending Council Directive 2000/34/EC, known as the horizontal directive, involves policy areas which are the responsibility of a number of Government Departments as follows: policy decisions relating to mobile road transport workers are the responsibility of the Department of Transport; offshore work and work on board sea-going sea fishing vessels are the responsibility of the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources; and doctors in training are the responsibility of the Department of Health and Children.
My Department has overall central responsibility for employment rights legislation in Ireland and has been working closely with the above three Government Departments given that the original Working Time Directive 93/104/EC had been transposed into Irish law through the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 — No. 20 of 1997. The position in relation to each of the sectors covered by amending Council Directive 2000/34/EC is as follows.
The Department of Transport is currently examining a number of policy issues, relating to decisions about the utilisation of available derogations under the directive, in the cases of mobile transport workers, for "workers concerned with the carriage of passengers on regular urban transport services", and rail and aviation workers. That Department has undertaken to advise my Department of the position in relation to any decisions taken in this regard as soon as possible. In addition, Council Directive 2002/15/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2002 on the organisation of the working time of persons performing mobile road transport activities is also the responsibility of the Department of Transport and must be transposed into Irish law by 23 March 2005.
The provisions of the amending directive relating to offshore work and work on board sea-going sea fishing vessels were due for transposition by 1 August 2003. The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources made a statutory instrument to transpose this directive with respect to workers on board sea-going fishing vessels on 18 December 2003 entitled European Communities (Workers on Board Sea-going Fishing Vessels) (Organisation of Working Time) Regulations 2003 — S.I. No. 709 of 2003.
Work on drafting a second ministerial statutory instrument in relation to offshore work is under consideration, and will involve consultation with the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel to the Government. This statutory instrument is expected to be signed into Irish law shortly. In addition, the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources made regulations on 6 November 2003 entitled European Communities (Merchant Shipping) (Organisation of Working Time) Regulations 2003 — S.I. No. 523 of 2003 — which gave effect to Council Directive 1999/63/EC concerning the agreement on the organisation of working time of seafarers concluded by the European Community Shipowners' Association and the Federation of Transport Workers' Unions in the European Union, and European Parliament and Council Directive 1999/95/EC concerning the enforcement of provisions in respect of seafarers' hours of work on board ships calling at community ports.
The Department of Health and Children points out that Article 2 of Directive 2000/34/EC states that the date for bringing into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions shall be 1 August 2004, with regard to doctors in training. For that reason, that Department was not obliged to implement the provisions of the directive by 1 August 2003, as is the case for other professions. The Department of Health and Children has also indicated to my Department that negotiations between the relevant medical representative organisations and that Department are ongoing. A primary aim of these negotiations will be to achieve agreement on the implementation of the requirements of the directive regarding reduction of non-consultant hospital doctors, that is, doctors in training, working hours by the relevant deadline. It is the Department of Health and Children's intention to transpose the provisions of the directive as regards doctors in training at the earliest opportunity, but in any case in advance of the 1 August 2004 deadline.
