Mr. John Smith:

In our experience, the old REA system was used as a stick to beat good contractors by the monitoring agencies already referred to. That is not right. Do we agree with employers who stop paying employees' pension contributions? No, we do not. There are at least 39 items of employment legislation in force at present. NERA is the body charged with enforcing that legislation. It is up to NERA to ensure that the laws of the land regarding employment are upheld. We do not need another REA that will restate the existing employment law. Issues such as working time, holiday pay and so forth are already governed by law. It is a matter for the bodies empowered to enforce those laws to do so.

I agree that regulation is good. This country needs regulation and indeed, we already have a great deal of employment regulation. The problem, as we see it, is with enforcement. Without proper enforcement, we are going nowhere. The way to solve regulation problems is not to regulate further unless one has enforcement systems in place. We must sort out the issues with NERA, which is the body with enforcement powers at present. NERA must enforce the existing regulations.

We had three different models of regulation in the past. Electrical contractors paid more to be monitored than any other construction sector workers but still it was not right. We do not need another agreement because it is not a one-size-fits-all scenario. At the same time, we do not condone any employer exploiting employees. The people who work with us are predominantly in small, family businesses and have been continuously employed for ten to 15 years or even longer. There is not a high level of transience in that sense. It is in the more transient areas that the discrepancies lie.