Mr. Francis O'Donnell:

Senator Nash raised a number of issues. To start with, unfortunately, every time there is a media report about this issue, I get the calls from journalists. I have been fighting a rear guard action for a number of years on this. I have gone on radio and made it very clear that there probably are rogue operators in the Irish fishing industry, like any other industry, and that they needed to be weeded out. Those are the words that I used on RTÉ about this. I have been frustrated myself. We went in and presented in front of the task force. We initially thought we would be part of that task force. Like other organisations, we gave our view as to how we thought this should be rolled out. Like any scheme, after a period of time, there should be a review of that to see how it is working for everybody, for the employee, for the employer and for the State itself. That has not happened. In fact, the task force was disbanded and I wrote to Deputy Frances Fitzgerald to try to get everybody into a room. I was not asking to control who was going to be there but for somebody to take the lead on this to get us into a room and to get us talking about it. I was personally concerned that the structure of the permit system left migrant workers very exposed. A permit is a person's permit. If it is assigned to just one vessel and that is written into law then that person, technically, if he or she falls out with the master of the vessel, is in serious trouble and could find himself or herself on the side of a pier, homeless, and would be a major burden on the State. That person would be in real trouble with no money.