Professor Michael Doherty:

A proposed amendment to the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act was mentioned. By and large, I am not in favour of criminal sanctions for this kind of thing because I do not believe they work. In its submission to the committee the Department mentioned that, under the Social Welfare Act, there are potential penalties, fines and convictions on indictment. I do not know whether the committee has the figures on how many prosecutions go ahead but I suspect they are very few in number. Outside of the specific area of health and safety, very few criminal prosecutions are taken on employment rights because they are hard to prove. The sanction for public contracts is along the lines we have described. People are not given contracts again and the State litigates against contractual awardees who do not fulfil their functions. The remedies for individuals include compensation, allowing that remuneration owed is backdated.