Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Their trade union is there for that reason. That is why people organise in a collective way. Five trade unions were at the table to negotiate this and have worked closely with employers in this sector to agree terms and conditions. Employers will now be legally and statutorily bound from August, once we sign this into law, to pay appropriately in that regard and unfair dismissals legislation is in place in case what the Senator outlined occurs.

It is very concerning to hear about the sites in Limerick. I urge the Senator to report any details of complaints like that to the Department of Social Protection, Revenue and the WRC. Three bodies have the power to look at this and to investigate any incidents like that.

In respect of the WRC specifically, this year an additional €2.4 million has been allocated, bringing its budget to €21.2 million. The inspectorate currently has sanction for 80 inspectors and 54 are in situ. A national recruitment campaign is under way. We now have a panel of interviewed applicants and expect to be able to hire to fill those vacancies in the coming weeks. The WRC had carried out over 6,500 separate visits to workplaces to the end of last year, with 4,727 inspections completed. As at the end of June of this year, the WRC inspectorate had completed 2,468 workplace inspections, involving 3,316 individual inspection visits.

As can be seen, we have inspectors on the ground carrying out these site visits and inspections.