Ms Patricia Callan:

One of the main reasons our members pay us, as a representative organisation, is to provide specific advice on employment law. I am reasonably confident that virtually all of our members strive to be compliant but it is difficult to be 100% compliant all the time. We have worked for many years with inspectors and the Workplace Relations Commission, which has moved to a model of risk-based targeting, similar to the model used by Revenue. As such, inspectors should find high levels of non-compliance because they should not waste compliant employers' time by inspecting them. It may well be worthwhile to examine that issue.

The statistics are incredibly complex. I can do a sentiment survey and pool a sample but this is the type of thing one sees in regulatory impact assessments if they are done correctly and where one engages the arms of the State to investigate this properly. It was very disappointing that the University of Limerick study did not feature any original research and relied on data from 2010. We need to go back and do this properly. My organisation will certainly assist the joint committee with anything it needs.