Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

Many people from other countries, who are working in domestic service, are prisoners in the homes of this country's nouveaux riches. They are being exploited and abused as they work for long hours to do the most menial of tasks for the poorest of pay. Such abuse is not confined to sections of the construction industry, Irish Ferries and Gama Construction. The Minister promised portable work permits, but the Bill that was brought to the House did not measure up to the Minister's promises. The work permits that will be issued to people from other countries under the Bill will not be portable. The proposed legislation is an inadequate improvement on the existing position. Even if the 31 labour inspectors were in place — they are not in place — there would be little more than one inspector for every 100,000 workers. We need to take action if we do not want to build problems for ourselves. The casual replacement of workers taking place in Rathangan shows that the policy being pursued at Irish Ferries is catching on. It is possible to casually replace a number of indigenous or other workers with cheap labour. We need to address such matters now and to show the foresight that will help us to avoid the kind of problems being encountered in the suburbs of Paris and elsewhere.

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