Ms Oonagh Buckley:

I thank the committee for the invitation. I am joined by Mr. Padraig Dooley who is the head of our inspection service and he will be able to answer questions in greater detail.

The WRC plays the same role in inspecting the 176 whitefish vessels more than 15 m in length as it does for places of employment generally with two exceptions. First, authorised officers of the Department of Tourism, Transport and Sport, that is, marine surveyors, have responsibility for enforcing compliance with rest period and maximum working hours requirements in the fishing and merchant shipping sectors, not the WRC. Second, Irish employment law does not apply to persons classed as "share fishers" for Revenue purposes, as they are deemed to be self- employed. Delivering on our responsibilities, which we take seriously, under the MOU, which we were heavily involved in drafting and which we were keen to sign up, was a significant challenge for us because we were not used to inspecting fishing vessels.

We have put significant resources into inspections and we estimate that since February 2016, we have deployed more than 1,800 WRC inspector hours to inspecting 170 workplaces, which equates to more than 100 hours per vessel. Our inspections cover surveillance, inspections on sea and follow-up compliance checks, and repeated correspondence with the employers, and, ultimately, if we cannot secure compliance, which is our aim across all places of employment, we follow up with prosecutions. A number of prosecutions have been commenced by the commission in this area. At this stage, we have inspected 96% of the relevant vessels. This is not easy because these involve a moving workplace. I understand that we cannot inspect the remaining 4% because they are fishing tuna somewhere off the Spanish coast but we intend to get to them when they return to our shores.

We co-operate strongly with the other stakeholders under the MOU. We share and receive substantial volumes of information. This is an extension of our work of sharing information with all other investigative agencies. For example, on land, we share information with the Department of Social Protection and the Revenue. I heard the WRC mentioned frequently in the context of people passing information during the earlier exchanges. We are at the end of the pipe for much of the information sharing. We have engaged extensively with stakeholders, including the ITF, Migrant Rights Centre and IFPO. Mention was made earlier of a difficulty involving inspection of log books late last year and early this year but we have reached a satisfactory compromise, which allows us access to the information we need on board the vessels.

It is clear that fishing vessels are difficult places to work. This is clear internationally. The ILO recently produced a report, which is being discussed in Geneva, in which the difficulties regulatory authorities experience in dealing with working conditions on board fishing vessels are clearly laid out. It shows that many times regulations are passed but the follow-up inspections are not perhaps as evident.

I hope the committee will find from the information we have provided it that the WRC, at least, has performed its responsibility under the memorandum of understanding and has followed up with the necessary inspections to the best of our ability.