I move:
That Seanad Éireann approves the following Order in draft:—
Employment Equality Act, 1977 (Employment of Females in Mines) Order, 1984
a copy of which Order in draft was laid before Seanad Éireann on 28th November, 1984.
Employment Equality Act, 1977 (Employment of Females in Mines) Order, 1984: Motion.
Item No. 1 deals with a proposal to make an order under the Employment Equality Act. I will keep my remarks brief not because I think the subject is not important but because I would anticipate that it is not a matter that the Seanad will find particularly controversial.
The background to the situation is that in the past concern for the safety and health of women at work has provided a raison d'être for a series of protective labour regulations which perhaps not intentionally have had the secondary effect of restricting career opportunities for women. The core legislation of this area is the Employment Equality Act, 1977. Section 14 of that Act recognises that certain requirements in four items of legislation could have had the effect of forcing employers by law to discriminate against women in employment. Accordingly, its provided that the Minister for Labour would be in a position to appeal or amend any such requirement but could do so only by affirmative order.
One of the Acts contemplated by the 1977 legislation is the Mines and Quarries Act of 1965. Today we are concerned with two provisions of that item of legislation. Section 107 (1) of the Mines and Quarries Act prohibits the employment of females below ground in a mine. Section 110 restricts the employment of women in the mines at night. Those provisions have outlived their usefulness. If I can borrow the words of the 1977 legislation, it can be said of them: "They are likely to affect or impede the elimination of discrimination in relation to employment or the promotion of equality of opportunity between men and women in relation to employment".
I am happy that I am not alone in that viewpoint. My view coincides with that of Mr. Justice Barrington and the commission chaired by him in relation to the whole area of safety, health and welfare at work. That is the most comprehensive review of our entire safety system. In it the commission argued very clearly in favour of a set of principles upon which an effective safety system should be based. They advanced as a key principle the idea that the system has to embrace all workers. That report, in my view very properly, draws no distinction between the safety and health problems of women workers and those of men and calls for the review of restrictive regulations to be accelerated. On the basis of a review of those provisions undertaken in my Department and the views of industrial, professional and other representative bodies who have communicated to me, it is now my intention and the intention of the Minister for Labour to propose, with the approval of this House, that an appropriate order should be made under section 14 of the Act.
I now come to the details of the draft order which is before the House. In the first instance, it proposes to abolish the restriction on the employment of women at night in mines. It then goes on to remove the prohibition on women working underground in a range of professional occupations which may require certain practical experience of underground work, for example, some aspects of management or training posts. The categories involved include a number of areas of specialisation: radiologists, mineralogists, geologists, to name just a few.
This is of some significance in the area of female students. Female students in those disciplines may be required as part of their courses to undertake work experience and to do so in underground work in mines. Up to now they have been effectively debarred from such experience, so they will benefit from the changes which will be effected by this order. I anticipate that a number of Senators will ask: why this restricted approach? Why not go the whole way? Why not remove any restriction on the employment of women underground? Let me say in advance that I see the force of that argument, but we are not free agents. We are constrained by a convention of the International Labour Organisation, to wit, Convention No. 45 which we ratified in 1936. That convention forbids the employment of females in underground work in a mine.
It then goes on to provide that national laws or regulations may exempt certain categories of females employed in non-manual work. We are going as far as we are permitted to go by the convention to which we are a signatory. If we were to remove the ban completely, that would involve us in denouncing the International Labour Organisation convention. That is not unthinkable but it is not something which we can do today. If we were to denounce, the earliest date on which we could do that under the procedures of the ILO would be May 1987. I am prepared to look at that between now and 1987 and the Minister for Labour and I would welcome the views of Senators on that issue.
Before proceeding to make an order, the Act requires consultations with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and with the Federated Union of Employers. That consultation has taken place. Even if there were no statutory obligation to take the views of the social partners into account, this Government would do so in any event. We have also gone further and sought the views of the Employment Equality Agency and the Council for the Status of Women. Both of those bodies are in favour of the measure proposed. The draft order requires an affirmative resolution and I urge the House to make such a resolution today.
I do not think that on this side of the House we have any difficulty in approving the order but perhaps the Minister could indicate how many females he expects to work in mines. It seems to be a very depressed industry at present and I should like to hear his views on that.
It is obvious that EC membership has brought considerable economic benefits but in turn has given rise to certain social obligations, like equality legislation. Left to ourselves we would be very slow to make these important advances. Legislation, however, can only go so far.
A few weeks ago in the Seanad the Minister for Labour made the point that progress in women's affairs cannot be made conditional upon some level of economic growth. Trade unions give women's issues a low priority. It is worth pointing out that even in the prosperous sixties and seventies women's issues were also given a low priority by the trade unions. More recently, despite the operation of the Anti-Discrimination (Pay) Act, 1974 and the Employment Equality Act, 1977, progress on equality has been very disappointing. A variety of factors have contributed to the relatively slow rate of progress. The low priority accorded to equality problems by trade unions has contributed to this lack of progress. This in turn is related to the exceptionally low level of female participation in their unions. The low level of awareness among employers about their legal obligations under the Employment Equality Act, 1977, is another obstacle to progress.
The relatively small number of claims on equality issues that come before the Labour Court machinery is another indication of lack of adequate action on equality issues. Finally, there is the disturbing trend that in AnCO courses, for example, apprentice courses are composed of 99 per cent male while secretarial courses are 99 per cent female. This underlines the traditional bias. This leads us back to the school curricula and attitudes in the educational field. The dominant trend is for boys to do metalwork or woodwork and girls to do typing.
The Minister referred to the Employment Equality Agency. The agency have a particularly wide brief which includes promotion and advice, research, review of legislation, enforcement, conduct of formal investigations, codes of practice and assisting individuals with equality problems. The Agency do not have enough funds to carry out their tasks effectively. Of particular relevance to us as Members of the Oireachtas is the Agency's role in enforcing the law in the public interest. Successive Ministers have taken a number of initiatives to promote equality but one of the most practical means of demonstrating that the Minister and his Government are serious about advancing equality is adequately to fund the Employment Equality Agency.
Work reorganisation provides another means of female participation in the workforce. When the Minister of State was in the House on the Hours of Work Bill, I mentioned the possibilities for work sharing as a means for promoting equality of opportunity among professional women, such as nurses, doctors and dentists. Many of these professionally qualified women are torn between a desire to work full-time in the home rearing their children and to work full-time in their professions. These professional women who have possibilities of securing jobs in the public service should be facilitated by the State to work halftime if they so wish. That is a positive way in which the Government could take action in that regard.
In relation to women and their advancement on the equality front, I fear that too often in the on-going efforts to promote equality and women's rights too little attention and credit is given to the incomparable role that full-time housewives and mothers play in Irish society. The contribution of the full-time mother to the rearing and early formation of her children who will be the adults of the future is of inestimable value and should be genuinely recognised and acknowledged at every opportunity.
As I have said we approve of the draft order. If further progress is to be made on equality the three main parties, women themselves, employers and Government, must press ahead with changes. Women can help their cause in a variety of ways, not least by becoming more active in their trade unions and raising the level of priority for their issues. The three largest unions in the country, the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, the Federated Workers' Union of Ireland and the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union, each has a female membership of one-third of the total. Unhappily however, the female participation on the main decision-making bodies of these organisations, namely, their national executive committees, ranges between 7 per cent and 9 per cent as opposed to 33 per cent female membership in each union.
Employers need to increase their level of awareness of their legal obligations under the Employment Equality Act, 1977, and, in particular they need to adopt and implement more positive attitudes to equality.
Finally, the Government can certainly help by providing more urgently needed resources for the Employment Equality Agency and by helping with the updating of school curricula. The Government can also help by constantly reviewing and amending existing legislation. I should like to ask the Minister when we might be likely to see the proposals from the review of the Employment Equality Act which has been underway for some time.
I, too, should like to welcome and approve this draft order. As the Minister said when introducing it, there are discriminations in the Mines and Quarries Act, 1965. There is a total prohibition on women being employed at night in a mine and also a prohibition on women being employed underground in a mine. The effect of this draft order will not remove entirely the prohibition for reasons the Minister has stated — our commitment to the ILO convention. I am pleased that he is to keep that under review. I would imagine that the ILO will be discussing it actively in the next couple of years. The effect of this order will be to amend the 1965 Act and to remove these discriminations against women.
They are in a rather narrow range but for those seeking employment in the mining industry they are obviously of importance. Not only are the provisions an impediment and a barrier to women seeking employment, but they are also a psychological barrier to a whole sector of industry. They narrow the choices open to women and that conditions employers, it conditions girls who are thinking in terms of career choices, so the effect of an order of this kind goes beyond the specifics of the particular job. Nonetheless I should like the Minister to give us some figures of the number of women at present who may be affected by the provisions of the order, and how many are likely to be seeking either management or training experience and who would be able to benefit from this amending order.
The Minister referred to the fact that the power to bring in an order of this kind to amend earlier legislation is contained in the Employment Equality Act, 1977, and he is pleased to be in a position to move this order and to effect the change. In approving the draft order, I should like to join with Senator Hillery in asking the Minister to disclose to the House when we will have other priority equality areas dealt with, and specifically when we will have legislation coming before this House to amend the two main Acts, the Anti-Discrimination (Pay) Act, 1974, and the Employment Equality Act, 1977. The Employment Equality Agency to which the Minister referred have been consistently referring in their annual reports to the need for basic changes in that legislation. For example, in the annual report of 1982, which is the latest published report of the agency, they refer to the fact that in 1979 they submitted a comprehensive memorandum for an amendment of the Anti-Discrimination (Pay) Act, 1974, detailing the proposed amendments and new provisions which would be required to ensure that that legislation was satisfactory.
Similarly, in December 1981 the agency submitted a memorandum to the Minister for Labour containing proposals for an amendment of the Employment Equality Act, 1977. The agency have been concerned for some time, as are the trade union women's forum and other women's organisations, about the lack of priority given to this area. I should like to emphasise that it is a matter of very significant importance to the achievement of equality that we have the amending legislation which has been very long promised and very long canvassed for by the agency and by others. I hope we will see that legislation introduced in the next session.
In view of the discussion on the Order of Business today about legislation being introduced in this House, I strongly urge the Minister to consider introducing that legislation in this House. It would receive a broad welcome on both sides of the House. It is certainly necessary to clarify some of the terms in the existing legislation. One important amendment which should be considered is one which would strengthen the role of the Employment Equality Agency. I should like to join with Senator Hillery in urging that the agency be properly funded and staffed in order to discharge their very important statutory role and functions. It would appear to be necessary to amend the legislation to enable the Employment Equality Agency to have a specific function which their sister organisations in the UK and Northern Ireland have, in other words, the capacity to assist women workers who wish to avail of either the 1974 or 1977 legislation by providing them with the resources to bring cases to the High Court particularly if they need to appeal on a point of law.
It is quite notable that the equality legislation has not been either developed or used to its full potential because that resource does not exist. If we contrast the situation in Ireland with the position in the United Kingdom, we see not only a much greater volume of cases going to the courts there on appeal on a point of law, most of them funded in effect by the Equal Opportunities Commission, but that also has given rise to a number of references in turn to the Court of Justice in Luxembourg under Article 177 of the Treaty.
Here the main thrust of bringing a case has to come from women who are supported by their trade union, or in some cases women who are not supported by their trade union. They go through the procedures with the equality officer in the Labour Court and if at that stage they get an unfavourable determination it is extremely difficult for them to contemplate bringing further proceedings for two reasons and they are very obvious reasons. One is the contemplated cost of bringing proceedings before the High Court and the other is a psychological approach that the courts are unfavourable to workers and to the trade union movement.
This is reflected in other areas. At the moment it is a very serious barrier to the full realisation of rights under the equality legislation for women workers. It has to be realised and accepted as being a current barrier. It can be surmounted if the Employment Equality Agency are enabled, under the amending legislation, to provide the necessary resources to ensure that cases which raise important issues for the individual woman, or women workers, and also for the general jurisprudence in equality legislation are brought before the High Court and, if necessary, are brought further still.
I welcome this specific order in its own narrow context. I hope the Minister can tell us more about that context in his reply to the debate. I urge him to expedite the introduction of the amending legislation. I presume it will be possible and desirable to have one amending Bill to amend the provisions of the 1974 and 1977 Acts. They are Acts which are, in any case, to be construed together. It is desirable that they would be amended by one measure and that this would be done as a matter of the most urgent priority.
I very much welcome the statement made by the Minister for Labour this week in which he strongly affirms the Government's commitment to the principle of equality of opportunity. He reflected a number of the themes which were discussed in this House when the Joint Committee on European Community Legislation report on equality for women was being discussed in this House.
A commitment such as the one reflected in that statement last week on a positive action policy towards equal opportunity also requires that the Employment Equality Agency should have the resources to monitor how that will be implemented. To discharge their role and function they must be given adequate funding and indeed an upgrading of their general staff and the necessary specialist staff. The next few months will give an illustration of the seriousness of the commitment of the Government in this area of equality.
At an operational level, the commitment has been stated and it will be of importance to see how the follow through comes and, in particular, whether we get the amending legislation and whether we get the practical steps taken to accelerate the pace for the achievement of equality. It is necessary at this stage to reverse a present trend, which is a downward trend. The situation for women workers is worsening as I said when we were discussing the report on equality for women. Therefore we must take positive action to reverse that trend and to get back to the achievement of the values which are implicit in this equality legislation, the genuine achievement of equality between the sexes.
I speak as a non-professional in this debate. The two people who have spoken before me spoke quite well about the need for continuous amending legislation in the equality field. I wonder what is the effectiveness of this particular draft order. It appears to me that this is a cosmetic exercise which will have absolutely no practical bearing on what will happen in the mining industry in Ireland. I presume that it will look well as a statement made by the Irish Government that we will continuously amend our equality of employment legislation. Presumably this will be used eventually when the debate on amending the ILO convention of 1936 takes place. It appears from the bald statement that it is a piece of legislation that will be useful, or possibly could be useful to radiologists, mineralogists, or doctors who might at some stage be involved in mining in Ireland.
I should like to ask the Minister how many people are involved in mining in Ireland at present? How many were involved this time last year? How many were involved the year before? It seems to me that this order is dealing solely with one mine, that is, the Tara Mine. That is the only mine that is in operation at present. In the last fortnight we had the closure of Ballingarry Collieries with a loss of a number of jobs. We have seen the total decimation of the Leinster coalfields. We have seen the total decimation of the mines in Leitrim and in Sligo. This legislation will not do one thing to bring back mining to these areas. What is needed is not a statement that there is a possibility that people who want training can get it in Irish mines. What we do need is a Government statement of policy for the rejuvenation of our natural resources. When Ballingarry Collieries were closed last week it was stated — and the statement cannot be refuted — that there is at least £29 million worth of fuel available in Ballingarry Collieries but, because we do not have——
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
That does not arise.
May I ask the Minister when will a mineralogist be employed under this amending order in Ballingarry Collieries? What is the Government's intention regarding equality of work as between men and women in Ballingarry Collieries? Is it the intention of the Government that this order will be used to give equality to both men and women in the provisions of jobs in Irish mines? It can only be used at present in relation to one mine.
When last was there an application from a student mineralogist, or from a doctor of either sex, for training in that mine? How many people will be affected by this order or is it, as I said at the beginning, a purely cosmetic exercise to have it on the books that we are bringing in amending legislation in an area where there is absolutely no need for it? There has been no demand for it. As Senator Robinson said, there are a number of other areas of legislation which need amendment to give effect to real equality. This can be done only if there are jobs available or if there is a need for them.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Senator Lanigan, as it is 3.30 p.m. I ask you to move the adjournment of the debate.
Debate adjourned.