Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Briefly on this point, there have been numerous public instances of people working on jobs - I have publicly cited such cases here - who would only be employed on the basis that they were on the dole. It involves the Department of Social Protection and Revenue. The Department in recent times has moved from having no involvement in it to having some giant inspections where officials have visited sites and checked workers' personal public service numbers. In a few cases they were probably able to find the employer in due course which could have been two years after the project was completed but it would have been of no value to the workers in the meantime.

When contacting Department of Education and Skills, another issue is - I referred to some projects in the past - that the Exchequer money is effectively going to the main contractor who then passes it on to a subcontractor. I have cited instances of subcontractors bussing people to a social welfare office on a Thursday morning to sign on and then bussing them back to the site where they change into their working clothes and carry on the day's work. That has been happening across the board.

When contacting the Department of Education and Skills, the National Employment Rights Authority, NERA, comes into this as well. The Department's response has been that it is the responsibility of the architect, who normally certifies the stage payments, to certify that the work was properly expended. I have spoken to architects who feel they have no real competence in these types of issues but they were the only link in the chain to certify that the work was being done and that payment should be made. It might be worth getting a comment from them perhaps after we get a report.

We should also include the issue of the public-private partnerships, PPPs. If there are any PPP bundles currently in gestation or in operation, we should make sure they are included as well. I have seen much malpractice in PPPs and I have even referred to it in the context of current PPPs being conducted by the NRA. Some of the workers on some of the jobs being done in the Dublin region have told me that they would only be employed by a subcontractor on the basis that they were signing on, and we all know where that is leading. The PPP element comes into it as well as the direct contract from the Department.