Home Knowledge Employment, Equality & Education: Legislation Programme Spring/Summer 2017

Employment, Equality & Education: Legislation Programme Spring/Summer 2017

Bill

Purpose

Status

Family Leave Bill

To consolidate with amendments all family leave legislation.

Work is underway

Universities (Amendment) Bill

To ensure compliance with government guidelines on remuneration, allowances, pensions and staffing numbers in the university sector.

Heads of bill approved in October 2012; drafting underway

Higher Education (Reform) Bill

To modernise the legislative framework underpinning the governance and functions of the Higher Education Authority and the governance structures of the universities.

Heads of bill are currently being drafted

Technological Universities Bill 2015

To provide for the dissolution of certain institutes of technology and for the transfer of their functions, assets, liabilities and staff to new institutes of technology to be established; to provide for the establishment of technological universities; and to provide for the functions and governance of these universities.

Awaiting Committee Stage (Dáil)

Health & Wellbeing (Calorie Posting and Workplace Wellbeing) Bill

To require food premises to display calories on menus and to require all public sector employers to have and to report on a Health and Wellbeing policy.

Heads of bill are currently being drafted

Disability/Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

To allow ratification of the UN Convention on Rights of People with Disabilities and to make further technical amendments to disability and equality legislation.

Order for Second Stage (Dáil)

Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2016

To contain provisions regarding the enrolment of pupils in schools and the requirement for schools to operate enrolment policies in a transparent fashion.

Awaiting Committee Stage (Dáil)

Garda Siochána (Compensation for Malicious Injuries) Bill

To provide a revised scheme for compensating Gardaí maliciously injured in their work.

Legal advice is being analysed

Qualifications and Quality Assurance (Amendment) Bill

To amend the Qualifications and Quality Assurance (Education and Training) Act 2012 to address some issues that have arisen regarding the scope of responsibilities in relation to the recognition of awards and regulation of private and voluntary providers, to ensure adequate protection of enrolled learners where providers discontinue a programme, and to give greater authority to institutes of technology to award Level 9 qualifications.

Heads of bill currently being drafted

Education (Parent and Student Charter) Bill

To amend the Education Act 1998 and to set out the principles that will guide how schools engage with parents and students, to require each school to have a Parent and Student Charter, that the Parent and Student Charter will be based on principles set out in the Act.

Heads of bill approved October 2016, submitted to Committee for pre-legislative scrutiny

Protections for Employees on Insecure, Low Hour Contracts

To implement the policy response to the University of Limerick Study on Zero Hour Contracts and Low Hour Contracts.

Work is underway

Health and Social Care Professionals (Amendment) Bill

To provide for registration of physiotherapists/physical therapists and some other technical amendments.

Heads approved December 2016

Industrial Relations Act 1990 (Amendment) Bill

To provide Garda Representative Associations with access to the State Industrial Relations Institutions.

Work is underway

Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 (Amendment) Bill

To amend the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 (OWTA) to remove the blanket exclusion of An Garda Siochana and members of the Defence Forces from scope of the OWTA and bring them within scope, subject to the application of the derogations permitted by the Working Time Directive.

Work is underway

Dublin Transport Authority (Amendment) Bill

To amend section 52 of the Act to reflect commitments entered into under the May 2015 Labour Relations Commission ‘terms of settlement’.

Work is underway

Competition (Amendment) Bill 2016

Bill to delimit the application of the Competition Act 2002 to Trade Unions and Trade Union Members and to certain agreements negotiated with public bodies, and to provide for related matters.

Second Stage (Dáil)