Mr. Neil McDonnell:

I wish to address a point made by Deputy Quinlivan. I do not doubt the sincerity or earnestness of anyone who has come to the Deputy from the employee side with a problem. The UL survey predates my arrival in ISME, so I was not consulted on it. Oddly enough, given that the trucking industry has strange hours, this was not raised as an issue in the trade association I was with previously.

I am keen to reiterate that despite a substantive study, there is no evidence of prevalence. The size of this problem has not been established and no scope of the problem has been undertaken. Yet, we are before the committee being asked by legislators to comment on a proposed Bill to set up a new Act independent of the Organisation of Working Time Act to address an unscoped problem.

This goes back to the interaction I have had with legislators in my previous life dealing with road transport and traffic issues. In fact, the State provides substantial enforcement measures right now. I appeal to the committee to tell us where those enforcement mechanisms are falling down. In this case, they are extremely weighted in favour of the employee.

I suggest the resources of the Legislature would be better directed to questioning the failures of National Employment Rights Agency inspectors now. I know of no employer who has found a NERA inspection to be a pleasant experience or an easy one to go through. That arm of the State functions well on behalf of employees. What is going wrong if this has been identified as a significant problem? The previous Minister asked us to respond to a previous study that was unable to quantify the problem. I do not think the nature of the problem has been established in any way.