Dr. Peter Rigney:

ICTU fully supports the apprenticeship programme. The most positive statement we could make on the new apprenticeships, which are experimental, is that they should be given a chance to develop. Some of them may falter and if they do, it will not be anyone's fault. If we do not experiment, we will never develop anything new. Some of the new apprenticeships are prospering and doing very well.

While I do not believe a cabal of employers go into a room and conspire to depress wages, the fact of the matter is, and this is according to the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection as opposed to ICTU, where employees on work permits work for a relatively low rate of pay, that rate tends to determine rates and conditions for other workers in the same occupations and sectors. It is a weight that drags on sectoral conditions. Some of the complaints I have heard are not from Irish citizens. The bitter complaints I have heard at union meetings are from Polish and Lithuanian citizens who complain about the pressure of non-EEA workers.

This brings me to another point. With regard to the foreign born population, for want of a better phrase, Ireland has one of the highest percentages in the EU. We have been extremely open to migrants in our labour market since 2004. We were one of the three countries that opened up fully to the EU 10, as they were known. People from foreign countries coming to work here is not a problem. The problem is people from foreign countries coming to work who are told they have a particular type of permit, that their stay in the State is conditional and that if they rock the boat, they could find themselves back where they came from. I go back to the ship and the Romanians waving €50 notes on "Six-One", while the Ukrainians stayed on board. That is the fundamental point.