Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)

I support this motion and am glad to be able to contribute to this debate. I commend the Members of the United Left Alliance and the Technical Group on tabling the motion. When listening to the debate in the Chamber, it was interesting to hear Labour Party Deputies attack Members from the United Left Alliance and the Technical Group for introducing the motion and for the words they have used in its support. Nevertheless, when one listened to what they had to say, they went on to speak in favour of the motion and engaged in a charade to the effect that they will protect low-paid workers and, as Deputy Higgins has observed, that by voting for the Government amendment tonight, they will in some way protect the low-paid and low-paid workers in our society. There is no way this will happen because on the removal of the JLC system, employers will move immediately to cut the wages of workers and the most low-paid in our society.

I wish to revert to comments made by the Minister in his contribution last night and by Deputy O'Mahony earlier this evening regarding the difficulties experienced by contractors when competing for construction contracts against companies from Northern Ireland or foreign companies in particular. Their solution is to cut the wages of workers working in this State for those contractors as though this were a magic bullet that would make them competitive with foreign contractors. The point is there are laws on our Statute Book with which all contractors tendering for public contracts in this State must comply. A contractor that works for more than 180 days in this State must register with the Revenue Commissioners and must acquire PPS numbers for all its employees, who are obliged to participate in the construction industry pension scheme. However, local authorities, public bodies and the Government do not enforce their own legislation on such tendering companies because they are pursuing the lowest price at all costs. Consequently, they let them away with it, which explains why companies from this State are not competitive when they tender for projects, as they do not do so on a level playing field. The role of the Government and all public authorities should be to ensure the levelling out of this playing field by ensuring that foreign and Northern Ireland-based companies comply with the law in this jurisdiction before being allowed to accept a contract in the first instance.

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