Dr. Peter Rigney:

I remain to be convinced it is a good idea, given the number of third level students we have available. Traditionally, people always took up summer work. There should be a forum where people can make a case for that. I had a very bad experience dealing with a particular Department. I am cautious in speaking about it, given the strictures the Chairman laid upon me. We told the Department we needed work permits, that we had a consortium in to talk about it and that the margins were cut-throat. At the meeting I said we would discuss anything and that we were in the business of discussing issues. I asked it to send us information on the grounding arguments for its position. I was given an undertaking that information would be provided but when I followed up that request with an email I was told that information was commercially sensitive. How information for a consortium in a cut-throat industry can be commercially sensitive is beyond my ken. I have a belief that Departments which act in a conscious way, whose officials are honourable men and women, can be subject to regulatory capture. They act as advocates for the sector but there is an absence of a voice for the potential workers. If there is a case for seasonal workers, somebody in a sector should have to go to a forum of the State and say those in the sector are being crucified because they cannot get seasonal workers, that their season for doing X, whether it be serving breakfasts, killing cattle or picking mushrooms, is for three, four or five months and they need those workers and can prove it. They can provide evidence, say they hired an economist and can present a highly important paper that weighs half a kilogram and, therefore, it must be of high quality given that its weight. A licence to lower wages and employ people on a minimum wage is de facto a subsidy from society, if not, from the State and it should be done in a public manner. The onus should not be put on a civil servant to go into a room and be told to come up with a figure.