Part of the debate – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 12:45 pm on 14th October 2002.
I support the motion, as do the majority of Committee members. It was considered at our meeting on 3 October. I sincerely hope that the issue of redundancy consultation does not become one of personal interest to myself and other MLAs. Seriously, it is an important issue. As the Minister rightly said, it is important that codes of practice be in place to attempt to achieve best practice in the field of industrial relations. The draft code is unique to Northern Ireland, but it revises an existing Northern Ireland code. The regulatory and equality impact assessments have been favourable in this case. I urge the House to support the motion.