61. Deputy Sinéad Gibney asked the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment for an update on the progress of the Action Plan to Promote Collective Bargaining. [66948/26]

Implementation of the 2026-2030 Action Plan on Collective Bargaining is progressing across a range of measures and key developments in H1 2026 have included:

• Six dedicated meetings, under the LEEF umbrella, between Department officials, ICTU and IBEC to support and monitor the implementation of the Action Plan and to discuss a number of targeted action items and debate papers from the Social Partners on specific topics or propose Actions.

• A new award category celebrating excellence in collective bargaining practices was launched in August.

• Constructive engagement with the Department of Finance, including the submission of a detailed proposal on the reintroduction of tax relief for trade union subscriptions. Of course this will ultimately be a budgetary decision for the Minister for Finance.

• Progressing the research commitments, with a view to developing and collating more robust and representative data on collective bargaining coverage during 2027, in advance of Ireland’s next reporting obligations to the European Commission in 2028.

My Department will continue to engage closely with the social partners and relevant Government Departments to progress the outstanding measures in the Action Plan. Progress will be monitored on an ongoing basis, with a mid-term review scheduled for 2028 to assess delivery against the agreed targets and identify any implementation challenges.

Of course, the Action Plan complements the existing Social Partner engagement arrangements, notably through the LEEF and National Economic Dialogue processes, as well as the longstanding support for the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court in support for strong harmonious industrial relations which are a key plank in supporting quality employment in a strong enterprise economy for workers in Ireland.