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What was Richard Bruton thinking of when he referred to setting up a “world class” service, to establishing a new entity that is “all about making Ireland the best small country to do business in”, when he launched a “new era for employment rights and industrial relations”? The answer, surprisingly, is the Workplace Relations Commission instigated last October with a cacophony of overblown rhetoric. With all the fuss, it comes as a surprise when this “world class” service says it can’t adjudicate on some of the equality cases within its remit. It recently stated it did not have the resources to deal with cases of discrimination by landlords against tenants in receipt of rent allowance. Kieran Mulvey, its Director General, was quoted as suggesting “We are not the appropriate body for this, this is not a workplace issue”. This is troubling given the Workplace Relations Commission is in fact bound to adjudicate on cases in a broad range of fields beyond the workplace, under the Equal Status Act. It is indicative, however, of a deeper malaise with the Workplace Relations Commission. Richard Bruton did add, with pride, that this new “world class” service was launched with 20% fewer staff and 10% less money than its predecessor organisations”. Who did he think he was fooling with his inflated verbiage? The Workplace Relations Commission was established in October 2015 through the merger of five organisations: the Equality Tribunal, the National Employment Rights Agency, the Employment Appeals Tribunal, the Labour Relations Commission, and the Labour Court. The Equality Tribunal had been a key part of the equality infrastructure and sits uncomfortably in this new entity with a mandate that stretches beyond employment rights to discrimination in the provision of goods and services, education, and accommodation. The Employment Law Association of Ireland (ELAI) is not impressed. They raised some fundamental issues in a February 2016 submission: about the adjudication of cases and the competency of the adjudication officers, the pre-hearing process and complaint submission, and mediation. The ELAI note that the rules of procedure of the Workplace Relations Commission do not address how hearings are to be conducted. It identifies concerns among its members that “there is inconsistency in how Adjudication Officers apply basic rules of fair procedure; for example, the permissibility of cross-examination and the application of rules of evidence”. Cases are heard in private and there does not appear to be any monitoring of decisions by Adjudication Officers. The ELAI is concerned that the rules “do not guarantee users’ constitutionally protected right to a fair hearing”. It is further concerned that the “framework for appointing and training Adjudication Officers is substandard”. There is no clarity as to the qualifications or expertise required of Adjudication Officers or what training they get. This is damning given the broad spread of cases they now have to deal with. The ELAI suggests there has been a “dilution of expertise” from the specialisation that had developed among staff in the predecessor bodies. Richard Bruton made much of the importance of mediation in cases concerning employment rights. It would appear, however, that the mediation service is under-resourced and cannot meet demand. It becomes ever clearer that this is not a service set up to be “world class” but to save money. The ELAI notes that some of its members recount instances “where both parties to a dispute have requested mediation but that request has been rejected by the WRC”. The ELAI notes that while most complainants are not required to detail the substance of their complaint when it is being lodged, “exceptionally, complainants must provide substantive detail for allegations of discrimination and constructive dismissal.”. The guidance given by the Workplace Relations Commission for employees making a complaint of discrimination requires that “the complainant must set out the facts, the link between the ground(s) cited and the alleged discrimination, any other relevant information and, where appropriate, any legal points the complainant may wish to make”. Under the procedures of the former Equality Tribunal such a statement was only required when submissions were requested some time after the complaint was lodged. The approach of the Workplace Relations Commission makes it more difficult for complainants to lodge a case of discrimination, increases the need for legal representation at an early stage with additional costs, and reduces access to justice. This is only the first year of operation of the Workplace Relations Commission. There is still time to get it right. However, it is clear that urgent action is required to ensure people are able to vindicate their rights. As paid work becomes ever more precarious and as discrimination persists at high levels, the weakening of our rights infrastructure in this way must must not be accepted.

The former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds once said that an Irish General Election was a series of 41 constituency by-elections. The vagaries of our proportional representation system mean that a modern Irish election can throw up all kinds of results. The landscape of Irish politics has been thrown into even greater uncertainty by the extraordinary destruction of Fianna Fáil which lost three-quarters of its seats in 2011 (dropping from 78 to 20 TDs). Though for me FG is more conservative, all I could reply was that Fianna Fáil were a party of the entrepreneurial bourgeoisie and Fine Gael of the commercial bourgeoisie The narrative for this forthcoming general election is already well-known. Taoiseach Enda Kenny is now seeking the kind of mandate Fianna Fáil used to get in former years. The rhetoric of stability once deployed by Fianna Fáil, is now being marshalled by Fine Gael. Kenny has staked his ground with the mantra, “Keeping the Recovery Going”, while making sure to register humility about the electorate who have brought about the economic improvement. The Taoiseach is understandably playing on the anxiety of voters about the potential for economic reverse if its voting facilitates a weak coalition government comprising disparate parties of left and right with little or nothing in common. In fact 1977 was the last time an Irish party won an outright majority and Governments which lack an actual parliamentary majority have proved to be among the most successful. Lemass led without a majority in the 1960s and Haughey did so again in the 1980s. A three-party coalition led by John Bruton, with little common ideology, ran quite smoothly from 1994. It appears that both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael actually perform best when under the watchful eye of smaller parties. Clearly there is going to be a coalition.  However, the real conundrum for the electorate is that the great probability is that Enda Kenny will be returned as Taoiseach though the likelihood of Fine Gael being back with Labour on their own is very much an outside chance. It is more likely that Renua and other independents will make up his numbers. Traditionally there has been a leader of the opposition who could put together a coalition alternative to the parties in power. A fully effective leader of the opposition has to credibly state to the electorate his (or her) chance of becoming Taoiseach. The numbers now, and since 2011, do not allow Micheál Martin to make this claim. The only way he could possible claim to having a chance of being Taoiseach after the election is if he consents to forming a government containing his own party, Sinn Féin and assorted independents or smaller parties of both left and right. A hung Dáil could throw up all sorts of permutations and there is an outside chance that there would be enough, disparate parties other than Fine Gael to form an administration. However, it seems unlikely that Micheál Martin would become Taoiseach and exclude both Fine Gael and Sinn Féin from government, thus stranding both in opposition. Indeed Martin’s decision to rule out forming a government with or containing Sinn Féin has allowed Gerry Adams to cleverly state that voting for Fianna Fáil is an irrelevance. Adams has made the argument that since Fianna Fáil  would go into power with neither Sinn Féin nor Fine Gael then it is pointless for voters to give it support. Sinn Féin is probably the only party in the political system, along with the radical parties of the left, that could, if it chose, openly claim that it is fighting the election in order not to go into power.  However, it does not appear willing to embrace this particular high-risk gambit. Nevertheless since Sinn Féin appears to be playing a longer game Fianna Fáil will have little to complain about if Sinn Féin actually does pass it out in this particular general election. Alternatively, if voters take it that there is no alternative to Fine Gael back in the saddle, they might construe this as giving them in effect ‘a free vote’. This could see the creation of a clear, Sinn Féin-led, left-wing opposition to the status quo though when faced with the challenges of being in government Sinn Féin will no doubt knuckle down, just as it has done in the North. Whatever the result it is most likely that it will be open to the leaderships of both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, with inevitable reticence, to form a grand coalition. This intriguing possibility has its supporters in both political parties. It is noticeable that a good many of those who serve on the Fianna Fáil front bench are privately in favour of this should the election results make it possible. On the Fine Gael side of the house figures like Simon Coveney have been explicit in not ruling this out. It would of course spell the end for both Enda Kenny and Micheál Martin. Maybe it is for this reason that the younger, more ambitious members, in both parties seem keener. There is after all much in common between the two big parties. Indeed the differences are famously elusive. The Economist magazine, in 2011, described Fine Gael as centre-right, Labour as centre-left and Fianna Fáil as nationalist, and of course two biggest parties were germinated in opposing stances during the civil war. Beyond this, Fianna Fáil’s sobriquet is ‘The Republican Party’ and it was for a while somewhat unsympathetic to the British perspective. In his history of Fianna Fáil, ‘the Party’ (1986) Dick Walsh noted that Fianna Fáil was as much a movement as a party, had always attracted as many rich people as Fine Gael and as many poor people as Labour. Donal O’Shea’s ‘80 Years of Fianna Fáil’ defines it as a “catchall party… appealing to all classes”. Walsh said its policies always defied definition and quoted De Valera as advising, “always keep you policy under your hat”. As to the difference, a French newspaper once

By Joe Higgins. The Oxfam Davos Report published on January 18 got relatively little media coverage here and was buried after twenty-four hours. Yet its content is truly shocking, pointing to a world that is witnessing massive inequality and an ever-widening chasm in the wealth of the big majority of humanity as against that of a tiny elite. For the first time in history the wealth of the richest 1% is greater than the aggregated wealth of the remaining 99%. €40 billion annual profits of Irish registered companies lie completely outside the tax net This should be a central feature in the current General Election campaign because it has huge ramifications for global developments that will impact on Ireland but also because chronic inequality is growing apace in this State also. You wouldn’t think that from the statements of the establishment political parties, nor from the issues emphasised by the big-business-owned media. In fact there is a concerted effort to not go there as seen in the controversy around the so-called ‘fiscal space’. The contrived debate on the fiscal space is really designed to shut down any meaningful discussion on what wealth exists here and how it should be shared and managed. It wants to confine commentary to the narrowest of parameters around an estimated €10 billion that will be available in extra public spending over the next five years based on assumptions of a certain level of economic growth. What this shuts out is any opening up of a debate on the massive wealth that exists outside of the current parameters of taxation policy and practice. Hence we have not only Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fail focusing obsessively on this, but Sinn Féin also chastising the other parties for being ‘irresponsible’ in their approach in exaggerating the amount available. Excluded therefore is any consideration of the €30 billion in extra wealth that the richest 300 in this State have garnered since 2010 according to the Sunday Independent Rich List while the majority groaned under the yoke of austerity. Excluded also are the massive profits reaped by big business including the major multinational corporations and the derisory tax that is levied on them. It is well known that the headline 12.5% corporation rate is but a vague target. It would be very generous to the corporations to say, as Eurostat figures do, that they pay an effective rate of 8.3% but if we were to take that as true, it would mean a very significant €2 billion each year could be raised if the headline were insisted on. Over five years that would immediately double the ‘fiscal space’. For every 1% increase after that there would be an extra annual €500 million for public investment and services. This is not even to take account of the work of Trinity College Associate Professor of Finance, Jim Stewart, who told an Oireachtas Subcommittee in 2014 that a massive €40 billion annual profits of Irish registered companies lies completely outside the tax net. The Anti Austerity Alliance Budget Statement from October 2015 outlines how massively increased resources could be made available for major public investment in areas like social and affordable homes and greatly improved public services by taxing the real wealth that exists. Where these extra funds could be raised in addition to the corporation tax increased intake, would be a ‘millionaires’ tax on wealth, an increase in tax for individuals earning over €100,000 per year and a Financial Transactions Tax. Depending on the rates applied, extra income of up to €10 billion a year could be realised. In view of the Oxfam report and the growing inequality in Ireland itself the debate should urgently begin on national and international taxation policy and the massive shift of wealth from the 1% to the 99%. In the United States Bernie Sanders, describing himself as a democratic socialist, is generating major political waves and massive support among working people and the poor, with his call for a “‘political revolution”. The Left in Ireland is the only force that is attempting to inject similar ideas in to the election campaign here. If the electoral initiative of the Anti Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit achieves the requisite seven Dáil deputies to form an official parliamentary group in the next Dáil, that debate can be significantly advanced here also. Joe Higgins TD is Director of Elections for the Anti-Austerity Alliance