Ms Oonagh Buckley:

Perhaps I should explain. I did not go through what we do on an inspection because I curtailed my opening statement. We interview the people on board. While I take the Deputy's point on language difficulties, as Mr. Dooley stated, language has not been significantly restrictive on our activities. Many employment rights follow through from decent paperwork, and if someone cannot show this, for example, that payslips are being issued, he or she cannot show that the minimum wage is being paid or that a host of other things are being done. It is a very important part of the process that we establish and ensure employees get what they require and employers give this to them. That is across a range of employments. Our investigations involve a substantial process.

The Deputy asked about the number of inspectors. I have 53 labour inspectors or whole-time equivalents on the books at the moment, with the figure rising to 57 if one includes Mr. Dooley and his managers. There is probably not a public service manager who would say he or she has sufficient staff or resources. We have had to cut our cloth in recent years in the context of the moratorium on public sector recruitment and so forth in terms of the number of people we have available to do the work. That being said, we carry out more than 5,000 inspections per annum and do substantial compliance and follow-up.

As I stated, fulfilling our obligations under the memorandum of understanding has been an incredibly resource intensive activity for the Workplace Relations Commission. We are talking about 170 workplaces which we have spent a large amount of our time inspecting. That level of intensity, which we have sustained for two years, is not feasible in the longer term based on our current resources. We will not stop inspecting fisheries vessels - that would be wrong - but we will not be able to maintain an inspection rate of 50% of the relevant fleet. It should be said, however, that as we return for the second inspection, we see more compliance. We narrow down and risk profile cases to go back to workplaces about which we have concerns. That exercise takes place on land and at sea.

With regard to the discrepancy on figures, there is no baseline survey of how many non-EEA workers are working in the Irish fishing fleet. An estimate done by the International Transport Workers Federation indicated there were roughly 1,500 non-EEA workers in the fleet. Last year, the European Commission estimated, based on figures from the Central Statistics Office, that there were 1,500 non-local workers in the entire fishing fleet. This figure covers every nationality other than Irish and would, therefore, include a substantial number of people from within the EEA. The Commission's estimate was based on what it said were the best available official data, namely, CSO figures. It had to extrapolate from a NACE code, which covered agriculture, forestry and fisheries. The task force estimated, based on Marine Survey Office inspection data, that there were roughly 500 non-EEA workers at that time. As members will be aware, slightly more than 200 employment permits have been applied for and issued. The figures are very different. In the course of our inspections, we found 29 non-EEA workers without employment permits or other rights to work. These cases have been corrected or the individuals were informed at the time that they did not have a right to work in the State, absent the necessary consents.

Mr. Dooley will address the issues of meetings and briefings for employees during the information period in early 2016.