Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 27 April 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Protection of Young Persons (Employment) (Exclusion of Workers in the Fishing and Shipping Sectors) Regulations 2021

Photo of Damien EnglishDamien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Louise O'Reilly for her questions. I agree with her in that we hope it is not overly common that young people are working in this sector. I do not have the number but I will try to get the Deputy some figures. We believe there are very few involved but it is important that the legislation be in place and very clear. We can communicate that. The directive is from the EU, so I guess we have to transpose it into international law as it stands. We consulted all the various players, including those mentioned by the Deputy, as part of the process. I believe it started in January 2020 under a previous Minister in my position. We went through the procedure to invite submissions and engage in consultation. There is a procedure set down to introduce these regulations, and we will follow that completely.

As with all our legislation in this space, this measure is communicated in the various languages to make sure it reaches the sectors it needs to reach. Three Departments are involved, namely, the Department of Justice, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and my Department, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, along with the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, the main agency for us in this space.

We will monitor what the Deputy has described but I do not believe it is very common. It is important, however, that we be very clear on it. I believe the Deputy would agree with that.

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