Ms Edel McGinley:

I disagree with the assertion in the Chamber in terms of workers being on work permits. Everybody has the same rights but not everybody has the same ability to claim their rights. Certain sets of circumstances impact on a person's ability to claim and enforce their rights. Those circumstances might include access to information, or fear in a sector. I cannot overstate how much the fear of loss of employment and of losing one's immigration status impacts on people asserting and claiming their rights.

I mentioned sectoral permits in the context of the reform of the immigration system. The gold standard is the green card which gives a person access to the labour market. In the case of nurses, for example, a person works for two years in the nursing sector, but after two years he or she has full access to the labour market and has a completely different set of rights. The green card is specific to a sector for a two-year period. The gold standard is the green card and that is what we would like to see. A subsector of that is the sectoral permits. I am happy to supply more detailed information on that to any Deputy who would like to see it. There are a few things in that and we would be happy to write up something for Deputy Cairns.