Mr. Liam Berney:

That incident in Tallaght referred to by Deputy Bruton was a long time ago and it shows how none of us is getting any younger.

The current position is very difficult for migrant workers, particularly as the height of the pandemic occurred at times of the year like Christmas. I do not have any sense that there has been a massive reduction in the number of migrant numbers in the economy during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is in fact self-evident that if we did not have the migrant workers in the health service, we would have been in much deeper trouble. The migrant workers in the health service by and large work for the HSE and get the same treatment, and terms and conditions of employment. I could not absolutely say the same for the private healthcare institutions such as private nursing homes etc. Establishing a joint labour committee for migrant workers in private nursing homes would improve their position.

It would make a significant difference. I know a report was done on the private nursing home sector recently which recommended that very thing. That report directed that activity towards the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to look at. Again, that is perhaps something the committee could consider.

The number of apprenticeships in Ireland is increasing but from a very low level. Colleagues from IBEC and Deputy Bruton have pointed to some of the barriers to apprenticeships, one of which is that in the first year, certainly of the traditional craft apprenticeships, a person must first find a sponsoring employer. Sometimes, if a person cannot find a sponsoring employer, the apprenticeship is closed off to him or her. Perhaps a structural change whereby apprentices spend the first eight or nine months of their training in the training college, as opposed to having to find an apprentice sponsor, might be a way of making a significant difference to the number of apprenticeships.

The State and public sector employers have a very important role to play here because predominantly, apprentices are hired by private sector employers. If the State were to up its game in terms of making apprenticeships available to young people and also adult learners, I believe that would make a significant difference.

On the question of asking the Low Pay Commission for its views on the treatment of migrant workers, the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, might be a better place to start. Ask it to give the committee a view as to its experience with carrying out inspections in places where migrant workers are employed to actually see what their experience is.

As I said in a previous contribution, I am on the board. We do not get the full range of information, however. I cannot, therefore, really comment in any great detail except to say there is a problem with exploitation in some parts of the economy. To be clear with everybody here, from an ICTU perspective, migrant workers are not the problem. The problem is the treatment migrant workers get when they arrive here. Unfortunately, they fall into the hands of some terrible, unscrupulous employers. That is the difficulty. If we could be guaranteed that a migrant worker coming here would have the exact same treatment as any other worker in the economy, then perhaps this kind of discussion would not be necessary. Unfortunately, however, that is not the lived experience of all migrant workers.

I hope that deals with the questions asked by Deputy Bruton.