Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is a very important issue which I hope the committee will consider. It is an area which we do not often get to shine a light on. I shudder to think of what happens to those workers when the spotlight goes off them and the inspectors pack their bags and go home. We have been told repeatedly that this is an issue because we are dealing with companies that operate with a low margin but when we are talking about meat processing, we are talking about companies such as the Goodman Group making €170 million profit in 2018 with assets of more than €3.45 billion. We are certainly talking about low pay; I am not convinced that we are talking about low margins because it does not seem to me that the profits are not being made. The push is on to increase the numbers here but it is clear that exploitation is rife in this sector. Every report that is conducted points to that. Mr. Berney, by way of his own experience, has advised us of that. We know if there were more inspectors, they would be uncovering more breaches which should give us pause for thought.

I want to reflect for a moment on the submission from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, with regard to the timing of this. There is a huge amount of uncertainty for workers at the moment. When and how the economy will restart is somewhat unknowable. Do the representatives from IBEC have an opinion about the timing of this particular legislation and the call for alignment which in some respects might be welcomed, but it is never alignment when it comes to outlawing low-hour contracts, recognition for trade unions or the right to collective bargaining. If we are going to talk about alignment, would the representatives from IBEC be happy if we were to align on all fronts with the others and not just pick the minimum or race down to the bottom but that we would actually have the type of alignment that would also benefit workers?