Louise O'Reilly
Question:1. Deputy Louise O'Reilly asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment when the code of practice for remote working will be published. [51452/23]
Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions
Employment Rights
This is a fairly straightforward question. I want an indication on when the code of practice for remote working will be published. It will give businesses and workers a bit of clarity. There is concern that working patterns are starting to be formed in its absence and people are concerned they may have to change back.
It is a very fair question and I am glad to put on the record how this is developing. The right to request remote working has been integrated into the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023, which was led by the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, and was enacted on 4 April 2023. The provisions of the Act pertaining to the right to request remote working are contained in Part 3 of the Act and have not yet been commenced.
All employees will have a right to request remote working under the Act. The right to request the other elements of a flexible working arrangement, such as adjusted working patterns or reduced hours, will remain limited to parents and carers as defined in the work life balance Act, though there is provision in the Act for this to be reviewed every second year.
A code of practice is being developed which will provide practical guidance to employers and employees on dealing with requests under the new law. Employers will be obliged to have regard to the statutory code of practice when considering applications for flexible and remote working arrangements. Employees will be able to refer a dispute to the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, where an employer fails to have regard to the code of practice and their obligations under the Act.
Work on the development of the code of practice is ongoing in the WRC. Since a public consultation closed in June of this year, the WRC has reviewed the 51 submissions received, as well as other relevant policy documentation, research and best practice as part of finalising a working draft code. A working group has been established and is attended by representatives from ICTU and IBEC. To date, four meetings have taken place at the WRC on the code. This working group meets regularly to have a robust code of practice published as soon as possible. The WRC is independent in carrying out its functions and consults with the social partners in the preparation of such codes. While no formal date has been set, I hope the code could be completed by the end of January. To give the Deputy a straight answer to her question, I expect it in the next six to eight weeks.
That would be very welcome but this has been subject to a fair amount of delay. The Government's first attempt at it was 13 reasons to say "No" to remote working. This obviously had to be put to one side because clearly it was not going to work. In September 2021, I was told by the then Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment that the general scheme of the Bill was imminent and that legislative underpinning for remote working would be a reality in a short time. I am patient but really this has been going on for a very long time. It is starting to cause concern. The concern is arising from employers and workers. I have met business owners and trade union representatives in recent weeks. The concern is that work patterns are developing, or that there are people who want to develop a work pattern who are being told they must wait until this code of practice is published. I welcome the fact the Minister believes it will be published in January. Perhaps he could give me a little more assurance that we will see it in the next six to eight weeks.
The important thing is that we get this right. This legislation was only enacted in April this year. It has not been going on for a very long time. The Deputy knows how the WRC works on something as complex as this, although it is not that complicated to be fair. It wants to build consensus between the two sides so that the code of practice is robust and makes a real difference to people's lives in terms of a request of an employer for remote working options. It wants to make sure that employers will respond as we expect and hope they will. The important thing is to get it right.
There are also time considerations. If we can get this done before the end of January, it will be good work. It is very new in terms of industrial relations. This is a good and very progressive provision that will contribute to changing work practices but we have to make sure that it works. I will not rush the WRC on this but I expect that by the end of January we will have clarity and, I hope, a new code of practice that will be in operation at that stage.
It is not fair to say this started with the work life balance Bill because it did not. It started with the Department's failed attempt to bring in a code of practice that then got subsumed into the work life balance Bill. It has been going on for quite a while. As I said, in September 2021, I was told the code of practice was imminent and that the legislative underpinning of it would be imminent. It is not for me but for others that I ask. It is not that new. It is part of an evolution in working time and working patterns. It used to be called teleworking, then e-working and then working from home and remote working. It is part of an evolution that is happening in the workplace anyway. The difficulty is that it is happening without guidance. I want to impress on the Minister the need for this to be done sooner rather than later. I appreciate that it has to be done right but a considerable amount of time has been given to it. I hope we will see it in the next few weeks.
I accept it is not new that employees ask for facilitation around work-life balance, remote working and flexible working. Covid accelerated an awful lot of this but it was happening even before Covid to a certain extent. What is new is the provision in law for an employee to request remote working options and for an employer to have a legal obligation to respond seriously to this.
When you put something in legislation you want to make sure it works. Both contributors to this debate, ICTU and IBEC, if you want to refer to them as contributors, as well as others liked the idea of having clarity through a WRC recommended code of conduct or practice. We are moving in that direction. I accept we are now at the end of the process so people want to get on with it - so do I. I do not think we are going to have to wait much longer. Given that Christmas is on the way, we are talking about having this finalised in the next couple of months.
Business Supports
Ged Nash
Question:2. Deputy Ged Nash asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment when he will publish the details of the financial support scheme for businesses announced in budget 2024; the total anticipated full year cost of the scheme; the estimated number of businesses likely to avail of the scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51444/23]
Louise O'Reilly
Question:3. Deputy Louise O'Reilly asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment for an update on how the increased cost of business scheme announced in budget 2024 will operate; and when businesses can expect to receive support under the scheme. [51453/23]
In my constituency since August we have had three separate and significant flooding events. There were two in Bettystown and Mornington, and one as we know more recently in north County Louth. We know ad hoc schemes are available to support businesses in distress, such as those which cannot obtain insurance. The Minister is on record stating he will introduce more permanent statutory schemes. Will he elaborate on when that might be the case?
I will of course answer the question, but the written question seems to be different to this one. It is about the scheme to support businesses announced in budget 2024, which is about the cost of doing business. I will answer both.
I was wrong. Pardon me.
There is no problem, whichever one you want me to answer first I will do.
Start with the written one, please.
I think you have questions down on both, in fairness.
Get him a coffee.
It is because they are grouped that this anomaly arises. I will take the increased cost of doing business grant first, and we will deal with the flooding one separately.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 2 and 3 together. The Government and I were conscious, in the negotiations for the budget, that many small businesses around the country are facing increased costs. Some of them are linked to correct Government policy, with regard to improving working conditions for people, increasing minimum wage, extending sick pay and looking at pension provision. These are all important changes to make work pay, but they also result in increased costs of employing people and running businesses. We were anxious to respond to that in a direct way. Last year there was a big announcement to support businesses with the cost of energy - the TBESS scheme. This year we have learned some lessons from that. While it was an important and useful scheme, I wanted to make sure that virtually every small business in the country would get an injection of cash in the first quarter of next year, recognising the multitude of costs they are managing and grappling with. We got agreement from Government to spend €250 million on this scheme, which is not insubstantial. It is approximately twice the amount of money spent on TBESS in the past 12 months. We wanted to do it in a way that did not involve a bureaucratic application process in terms of form filling and so on. We wanted to find a way of calculating how we could give money to businesses based on their size, turnover, activity, employment levels and so on. We have decided to use what businesses pay in rates as a rough indicator of their size of business activity. In the form of a grant through local authorities in the first quarter of next year we will give up to 50% of what businesses would have paid in rates this year. This is not a rates waiver or discount. It is a grant, separate to the rates system. The amount of grant given to businesses is being calculated linked to what they would have paid in rates this year. We think that is a reasonable indicator as to the size and activity of the business. I want to make sure that more than 90% of rate paying businesses get paid. What we announced on budget day was that the scheme would be roughly designed so that businesses paying up to €20,000 in rates this year would all get that payment. We are now looking at a bit more flexibility for businesses that are just above that figure. Either way, in and around 95% of rate paying businesses will be covered by this support scheme. That is the vast majority of businesses in Ireland, and virtually all of the small to medium-sized businesses that have a business premises because they are paying rates. The reason we chose rates is because the energy costs in particular, as well as insurance and other things, attached to running a business from a business premises means those businesses have more costs to take account of.
We hope to be able to get payments out in the first couple of months of the new year through local authorities. There will be virtually no application process required for the businesses.
The Minister will get a chance to come back in.
I will make a final point because there are two questions. Businesses will of course need to acknowledge the process in order to accept the payment from local authorities, but it is little more than that in terms of bureaucracy.
I apologise for the earlier confusion. As Deputy Richmond knows, I expected not to be here as we were stuck on the M1. Deputy O'Reilly probably was too.
I thank the Minister for that clarification. We have all received significant correspondence from businesses in our own constituencies concerned about additional costs for their businesses, as a result of positive moves relating to increases to the national minimum wage for example. Those are absolutely required, but we all understand the additional costs that arise for businesses across a range of areas. If I understand it correctly, the scheme will essentially be capped at €20,000 for businesses that are rateable and paying rates. I also assume that this scheme will only apply to those that are in good stead in terms of their rates records with local authorities. I welcome the clarification. I also propose that a significant public information campaign be run around this. There does not seem to be much clarity in the business community more generally about what is happening and what it can expect in the new year. I welcome the clarity they have put on record about the design of the scheme.
These questions are grouped because they are more or less the same. I will ask about the terms of the €250 million. I have no hesitation, as we did at the time, in welcoming that. However, the high energy costs are only one element. The Minister himself has said increases in the cost of business are coming down the line that will apply to companies and small to medium enterprises, which may have only a tiny rateable premises. In some instances they may have no premises at all. They will not be immune from the costs of doing business, even while they might be insulated from one element. The Minister himself has broadened it beyond energy. I know many people in the world of small to medium enterprises who are scratching their heads as to why more of that money could not have been re-profiled from the TBESS. As the Minister knows, only €150 million of the €1.3 billion was drawn down. He says this is more money than was expended by TBESS, but that was an incredibly difficult scheme to get into. He acknowledged that himself. I know it was tweaked, but the evidence is there. The cost of energy is high, the cost of business is high and the numbers that were drawing from that scheme were low. I welcome that this scheme will be clear, but will he give us an indication as to when the money will start to get into people's bank accounts?
TBESS was a scheme run by Revenue. My Department was used as a vehicle in terms of an estimate through which to run that scheme. However, it was effectively run by the Revenue Commissioners and I think was run reasonably. It was actually not that difficult to get into TBESS. Lots of businesses decided not to do it. Some businesses had hedged against significant increased costs. In the end, there were about 50,000 applications, representing more than 30,000 companies. We would have liked to have seen more applications, but it was still between €130 million and €140 million spent supporting energy costs. As an idea of the scale, by our calculations there are just above 150,000 businesses paying rates in Ireland at the moment. There are just under 140,000 businesses paying rates up to €20,000, so it is the vast majority.
Approximately 143,000 businesses are paying up to €30,000 in rates, which is approximately 96% of all rates-paying businesses. It is not true to say that we are giving €20,000 back to businesses; we are not. What we are saying is that it will be up to 50% of what a business pays in rates this year. What was announced on budget day is that it is up to €20,000 or potentially 50% of that. What we will do in the next couple of weeks is we will finalise the detail of the implementation of it. What I can only confirm today is that we will spend €250 million. It will be paid in the first quarter of next year through local authorities. We are currently finalising at the moment what it would cost to extend the upper threshold somewhat to ensure that it is not the case that a business that is paying €21,000 in rates gets nothing and a business paying €19,000 or 20,000 gets the full whack. We are looking at that. We have been speaking to business organisations and so on to try and get that right. That will be clarified probably in the next ten days. The key here is-----
The Minister will get a chance to come back in.
-----that there will be virtually no application process at all and all these businesses will automatically qualify as long as they are trading.
The Minister may not have this at a granular level. As I raised at the outset, is it the case that businesses will have to be in good stead with the local authority in terms of their repayment of rates?
Yes.
Does that mean, for example, that a business will qualify if it is restructuring its arrangements with a local authority for a repayment scheme, as many have done in recent years because of the difficulties they may have experienced in trading through Covid and so on? If they are in an arrangement with a local authority for a repayment scheme, I assume they will qualify for that support. The last thing we want is difficulty being loaded upon difficulty for businesses at the moment for reasons that we all understand. I presume that the local enterprise office will have an input as well into the rolling out of these schemes. They are the organisations on the ground linked to the local authority and they will best understand the SME landscape in various areas.
I welcome the scheme, which is an important one, especially in the light of the additional costs that businesses are experiencing, principally around energy as well.
The number of insolvencies is up 38% across the first three quarters of this year and, therefore, that indicates some businesses are going to find themselves in trouble. I welcome the clarification that if they are in arrears or if they have a requirement, as long as they are in an arrangement with the local authority, they can still apply. The sum of €250 million divided by 140,000 works out at an average of €1,785 per business. I am still not clear how this is going to be paid in terms of when they are going to receive the money and how it is going to be decided. I echo the call for a really detailed public information campaign to get to people because whatever the Minister says about the TBESS, it did not work due to the cost of doing business and the cost of energy. He is correct that some people had hedged but not that many. The cost of energy went through the roof. When I spoke to people, some of them said that initially they thought they might need to hire an accountant to be able to get into the process, which was unnecessarily complicated. I hope this one will not be.
With all due respect, I did not see anything in Sinn Féin's budget submission to support businesses at all in this space.
That is because the Minister did not read it.
We are putting €250 million out there with virtually no application process at all because small businesses, in particular very small ones, have said to me that they do not want a long detailed application process and to have to apply to the Revenue Commissioners because they do not want to have to take on an accountant to do it, as that is another cost that they cannot afford. We are taking that on board and we are saying this is a little bit like the household energy credits: businesses would automatically get it. That is the idea. They will simply have to confirm their bank account details and so on. The local authorities, of course, will have to confirm that they are in good stead with the business.
The reason insolvencies are up is that in the aftermath of Covid, where the State put a lot of financial supports in place to keep businesses in business, as we have started to unwind those financial supports, that has exposed some vulnerabilities in certain sectors. We have never had more small business activity or more employment in Ireland than we have today. Some businesses that are only paying €2,000 in rates are going to get €1,000 back. Businesses that are paying €10,000 in rates can get up to €5,000 back. We have used rates as an indicator of turnover scale, employment and so on. I think that is fair. To facilitate a bit more flexibility on the upper thresholds, we are probably going to have to adjust the scheme somewhat, while, at the same time, protecting the smaller businesses in particular to make sure that they get something significant.
We will finalise that, hopefully in the next week or so. Deputy O'Reilly is right that we need then to get a communications campaign out there to make sure every business understands what it is getting. This is not going to be the panacea to all pressures around business costs; of course, it is not.
I thank the Minister. We are over time.
This is a recognition payment effectively to businesses as we know that many of them are finding the going somewhat difficult in terms of costs and we are giving something back.
Question No. 4 taken with Written Answers.
Industrial Relations
Louise O'Reilly
Question:5. Deputy Louise O'Reilly asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment when the recommendations of the Labour Employer Economic Forum high-level review group on collective bargaining report will be incorporated into legislation. [51454/23]
It is very straightforward. It is more than a year since the Labour Employer Economic Forum, LEEF, high-level group on collective bargaining published its report. I am just looking for an update as to when the legislative proposals for implementation will be published or if legislation is what is being considered.
I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. As she may be aware, a LEEF subgroup has been established, which I chair, to discuss in detail the recommendations contained in the final report of the LEEF's high-level working group on collective bargaining. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, and the Irish Business and Employers Confederation, IBEC, are represented on the group, which last met on 16 November 2023. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend due to a last-minute commitment but the meeting went ahead in my absence as the group is very keen to get this concluded.
Prior to the last meeting, my Department circulated a note to the social partners on a proposed approach regarding some of the report's recommendations. The Department and the social partners had a positive and constructive discussion at a meeting I chaired on a range of recommended actions, including the use of technical assessors to assist the joint labour committees, JLCs, and to advise the Labour Court when preparing opinions; the makeup and membership of JLCs; the scope of sectors in respect of which JLCs should be established; other changes that could be considered to incentivise participation in the JLC mechanisms; and training requirements.
There was also some discussion about Ireland's action plan on collective bargaining, as required by the EU directive on adequate minimum wages, and how we can best work together to develop it. Both legislative and administrative measures need to be fully considered to give effect to the report's recommendations. In some cases, the legal proposals pose complicated legal and constitutional issues that require considerable analysis. Some recommendations could lead to legal challenge if not considered carefully. It was agreed with the social partners that this should be avoided.
Officials have been engaged with the Office of the Attorney General on those proposals, which would require legislative amendments. These are the proposal to empower the Labour Court to propose an employment regulation order when a JLC cannot convene, and the proposals for good faith engagement at enterprise level. A written opinion has been requested on these issues from the Office of the Attorney General. The group will meet again in due course.
I welcome that clarity. The Minister of State has previously said to me that legislative and administrative measures are going to need to be fully considered to give effect to the recommendations. He said that certain legal proposals pose complicated legal and constitutional issues. These are answers that I received several weeks ago so I am concerned that the situation has not advanced in terms of whether it will be legislation or an administrative procedure. If there is a constitutional issue, is that likely to delay matters? Is it the Minister of State's opinion or belief that a referendum of any type might be required or is it simply just the advice on how to proceed within the bounds of the Constitution?
He also mentioned that a further meeting of the group was scheduled to take place in the coming weeks. I am just wondering if it is moving towards a conclusion on this.
I do not mean this disrespectfully but the answer I got is a carbon copy of the one I got previously, which makes me concerned that there has not been any movement and that it is still a matter of a range of legislative and administrative procedures plus a potential constitutional concern. Is the Minister of State concerned about the pace? Is he satisfied it will happen, or happen quickly?
I thank Teachta O'Reilly. I am not concerned about the pace because we are getting into really important detail that needs to be resolved. There have been very frank discussions between departmental officials, me and social partners. We need to get absolutely precise information from the Attorney General's office. As the Deputy knows as well as everyone else, this has to stand the test of time. I would rather get it right than done quickly. We have seen in so many different areas that legal challenges can undo much good work and intention behind hastily drafted legislative and administrative measures.
I am not sure exactly about the timeline but am keen to see substantial movement, probably in the first quarter of next year. There will be a need for administrative changes and there is a likelihood that there will be a need for legislative changes. On whether constitutional changes will be required, we will have to wait for the opinion of the Attorney General. However, we are open to everything required to ensure that what is introduced is effective and stands the test of time.
I thank the Minister of State for the response. Could he indicate when the opinion of the Attorney General will be available? I appreciate that he is satisfied with the pace, but I am referring to the really important recommendations on strengthening JLCs and EROs and the appointment of technical assessors. The recommendation was that legislation would need to be introduced. As we all know, even to get it wrong you cannot go fast, and to get it right takes even longer. I am very concerned that there is a drift in this regard. That is not to say the people involved in the working group are not doing their work. I am sure they are, but I am concerned about getting the same answer every two months. To me, it does not seem like there is any pace. This matter is incredibly important. A strong trade union movement underpins a very strong economy. The more union members, the better. Membership is the best way to vindicate your rights at work. However, I am a little concerned that all the elements outlined to me two months ago are still being addressed and that there does not seem to be the required pace.
The Deputy knows I agree with her on that part. I have said so in this Chamber previously while taking parliamentary questions. Like the Deputy, I am a proud trade unionist, but I want to make sure this is correct.
The Office of the Attorney General has been asked to produce an opinion as quickly as possible. We keep ourselves updated on that and we will get it ready. The meetings between the social partners and the departmental officials are occurring in a very frank and open manner. We want to make sure we get this right. I apologise if the reply seemed to be a bit repetitive but it was such because the work is ongoing and very technical at this stage. I very much hope to revert to the Deputy in the early part of next year with some serious advances in progress. I look forward to her support if and when we have to make legislative changes in the Chamber.