Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 3 Dec 1998

Vol. 497 No. 7

Written Answers - Sunday Trading.

David Stanton

Ceist:

86 Mr. Stanton asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the reason the report by the working group on Sunday work in the retail sector has not been published; if it will be published; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26220/98]

Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Mr. T. Kitt)

In January 1998, I initiated a discussion process between IBEC and trades union interests, including the trades unions primarily concerned, SIPTU and MANDATE, under an agreed independent chairman to address the difficulties on the employment front associated with the growing practice of Sunday trading.

In May I received the chairman's written report on the outcome to that process. The report was brief and in it the chairman indicated that the parties involved had accepted that a code of practice, along lines proposed by him and appended to the report, could, without prejudicing the fundamental position of either side, form the basis of a common and voluntary approach to practice in relation to retail sector Sunday working. I accepted that report and subsequently, under powers available to me under section 35 of the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997, requested the Labour Relations Commission to prepare a code of practice accordingly. The LRC, having consulted the relevant interested parties, duly submitted such a code to me which, by Order signed by me on 19 November 1998, I declared to be a code of practice for purposes of the Sunday work supplemental provisions set down in section 14 of the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997. The code was published on 25 November 1998, and copies of it have already been lodged in the Library on 23 November. As the published code comprehends the essential content of the report of the chairman of the discussion process, I have no plans to publish the report.