Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 12 October 2023
5. Deputy Bríd Smith asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the reason he has referred the Industrial Relations (Provisions in Respect of Pension Entitlements of Retired Workers) Bill 2021 to the Department of Social Protection, despite it being within his remit; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44424/23]
View answerWill the Minister of State outline clearly the reason for referring the Industrial Relations (Provisions in Respect of Pension Entitlements of Retired Workers) Bill 2021 to the Department of Social Protection despite it falling within his own Department’s remit? The purpose of the Bill, which was before the House on Second Stage in June 2021, is to give retired workers a voice and representation in matters affecting their pensions.
I appreciate the opportunity to address this question. In April when the Minister, Deputy Coveney, and I met the Deputy and representatives to discuss her Bill, the representatives of various retired persons associations expressed their concerns about the protections in place for people who were already in receipt of pensions. At that meeting, I was informed that these representatives had not yet had any contact with the Department of Social Protection, which has policy responsibility for pensions policy. Therefore, the Minister contacted the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, about the pensions issues raised at the meeting and then wrote to her and requested that her officials consider arranging a meeting about them. Given that the proposed meeting was to have been between the Deputy's group and the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, I am unsure as to whether it has taken place.
Regarding the Bill, I would like to be clear that I did not refer it to the Department of Social Protection. In any case, it remains my view and that of my Department, as discussed at our meeting, that the Bill is fundamentally misconceived in that it is proposed that, in addition to employers and workers, a third category of "retired persons" would have access to industrial relations bodies. Our policy is clear in that industrial relations are a matter for people who are active in the workplace. I am not aware of any other country where retired persons have access to industrial relations bodies.
To underline the point, the Bill has not been referred to the Department of Social Protection. That Department was merely brought into the conversation.
I do not know what "brought into the conversation” means. I asked the Minister of State to explain what was happening clearly. I received a letter stating that the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, had been asked by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to consider the Bill. When we met him, the Minister of State told me and the retired workers clearly that he did not have a rational objection to the core principle of the Bill. Neither in the Dáil nor at the committee was the Government able to answer compelling cases made by retired workers for this Bill. In the two years since the Bill was debated, the Government has not produced a single alternative proposal as it said it would. We held a public consultation that overwhelmingly favoured the Bill passing into law, yet nothing was done. The Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy Coveney, met the workers and promised to produce a proposal, but nothing has been done for two years essentially. The Government is listening to the employer organisations and senior civil servants, who have advised it to stonewall and kick to touch, and nothing is being done. All the while, back bench Government Deputies who are being lobbied on this matter tell retired workers’ representatives and the 500,000 people they represent that they agree with the Bill’s principle. Will the Minister of State please explain this?
The Deputy raised a couple of points. As she knows from the previous times this matter was raised, progressing the Bill is a matter for her. The Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment met in public session in January to conduct detailed scrutiny of the Bill. Following that meeting, our Department issued a detailed brief to the committee, as requested, and nothing further has come from the committee.
We did not commit to producing an alternative at the meeting. I am sure the minutes and records of the meeting will show that. We said that we would look into the matter and engage with the Department of Social Protection, as laid out by the workers in that engagement.
Our concerns with the Bill are clear and have been stated actively. The trade union movement is not looking for this Bill. Bringing in retired people to negotiate terms is not something that is done in any other jurisdiction and is not something that we are prepared to support. That is the fact of the matter.
It is appropriate for the Department of Social Protection, as per the conversation at the meeting, to be asked for its opinion. Can the Deputy tell me whether the requested meeting has taken place or the representatives have engaged to arrange such a meeting?
As far as I am concerned, the Minister of State is giving an inaccurate reflection of the meeting’s content. The retired workers he met were representing 500,000 pensioners who used to work in the Civil Service and the wider public sector and who built up this State.
It has happened in the past that changes to their pension pot have been negotiated for the benefit of employers and unions. The trade union movement is not objecting to this Bill passing the various stages. The Bill is imminently sensible and belongs in the Minister of State's Department. It involves amendments to the Industrial Relations Acts and not to social protection legislation so there is absolutely no coherent reason for it to be passed to the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, for her to deal with. When the Bill passed Second Stage here, the Minister of State's Government amended the motion to say it would be deemed to be read a second time within a year, which would have brought us to June 2022. It is now October 2023. People get older and their pension pots decrease and all the while a simple amendment is needed to a provision that now gives them the right to go to the Workplace Relations Commission within six months of retirement. All this Bill does is extend that provision to cover any period in which their pension is interfered with. It gives them a voice and a say in what goes on without having to put up pickets, demand an end to this, that or the other or to take part in other industrial action. It gives them a voice.
I will underline that this has not been kicked to the Department of Social Protection. The Deputy has now made that accusation a second time when I have clearly said that has not happened. We are dealing with a pensions issue. While it is of course under the remit of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment as the Deputy's Bill involves an amendment to the Industrial Relations Acts, when it comes to pensions, it is only sensible to engage with the Department of Social Protection, as was discussed at that meeting. The workers' and retired persons' representatives the Deputy brought in agreed to that sensible option. I do not know if that meeting with the Department of Social Protection has taken place but I would encourage that and I encourage those representations. I am completely empathetic and sympathetic to the case before us but I am also aware of and very clear on the industrial relations negotiation mechanisms we have in this State. If the Deputy believes this Bill in its entirety is exactly what needs to be progressed, it is well within her remit to progress it through this House. That is her responsibility, as we have told her in response to oral parliamentary questions and during Questions on Policy or Legislation at least three if not four times since I came into this office. We will of course continue to keep an open mind and look at these issues as widely as possible but I fundamentally believe that involving the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, is sensible where we are dealing with pensions, although the Bill has not been referred to her in any way.
It has been kicked into touch. The Government amended the motion to stop it being passed that day.
The Deputy is misrepresenting things. That is unfair.
