Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their evidence and the information they have provided. I have a few questions. I am looking at the report published by Maynooth University in this area. It is a decent report. One of the key recommendations of the report, recommendation 3, states: "The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) and the Marine Survey Office of the Department of Transport (MSO) should perform more outreach work and speak directly to migrant fishers in private as a matter of course". I know that Mr. Kelly has outlined details of the cases and the numbers and all of that, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with people.

An obvious deficiency has been identified in the report. Perhaps Mr. Kelly can take us through how migrant workers are dealt with by the WRC. Is it routine to bring an interpreter when carrying out inspections? The report found that that is not happening. I would say that the WRC is already limiting its capacity to elicit the sort of information that it might need if the inspectors do not have an interpreter with them. I ask Mr. Kelly to talk us through how this happens and how the inspections take place. The Maynooth University report has found that the inspections are not necessarily working. In Mr. Kelly's opening statement, he said that 20 prosecutions have been brought against fishing vessel owners. I know, from talking to people in the industry, that the vast majority of employers, and indeed, any decent employer, want this scheme to work and want the workers to be protected. However, it seems to me that a core of rogue employers are not being dealt with. The report has found that they are employing workers who are not being spoken to in private, which I find quite unusual, and in some cases, they may not be able to speak even if the opportunity to speak in private is there, because there is no access to an interpreter. I ask Mr. Kelly to comment on that first, followed by Mr. O'Brien.