Dr. Peter Rigney:

That is the basis of my point. Where and to whom does one make the tangible case? Who else participates in this? That is at the nub of what I was saying. The Constitution states justice shall be administered in public. That has been extended to wage setting, which is not a legal matter. The mushroom industry was one of the first to get widespread access to EU labour. The bestselling book in Latvia one year was The Mushroom Covenant: Baltic Blacks among Celts, a diary of a Latvian woman picking mushrooms, along with many other women from the Baltic states, in the Border counties. I was only able to read bits of it. I do not believe it has been translated into English. It is interesting to look at us through others’ eyes.

I remember when I was studying for the leaving certificate, the Irish text was Rotha Mór an tSaoilby Micí Mac Gabhann. He went first to east Donegal, then to England, Cleveland, Ohio, and then to Alaska. That man spoke very little English but he had enough to be able to read a danger sign or his rights. Many of the people in question do not speak a word of English. If certain sectors want to bring in people from a non-English speaking background, they should encourage or facilitate them to learn the language.

What conditions my view on this is as follows. I mentioned the trawler visas. That fiasco was settled by the State on the steps of the High Court in a case taken by the International Transport Workers Federation which has a quasi-legal role in dealing with maritime matters from a trade union point of view. The weekend Romania came into the EU, the International Transport Workers Federation stopped a ship in Dublin Port. RTÉ news had a lovely shot of the crew members with their money, who had just been paid by this intervention. There was a picture of Romanians waving wads of €50 notes but the reporter then stated the Ukrainian crew members decided to stay on the ship. If people believe that they have citizen rights, as the Romanians did as EU citizens, they feel they have the strength to assert them.

The high-skilled workers have a skill which is in shortage and, by and large, they will be able to look after themselves. Those in the low-skilled area, however, do not feel they have the capacity to vindicate their rights. That is the problem. They are in danger of being exploited by others with a particular view of the world. That is what we are trying to sort out.

Bills to codify and tidy up unwieldy legislation are always welcome. There is a special point about the labour market which requires it to be kept in the public view and where legislators have control of it and the issues around it. There is a particular issue with the setting of wages. It should be done in a public forum.