Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

He spoke of a commitment to health and safety, yet, as my colleague, Deputy Crowe, pointed out last evening when the Minister was not present, there was a 42% increase in workplace deaths in 2005 in comparison with the 2004 figure. This disturbing trend must be reversed.

The Minister of State also spoke of substantial increases in redundancy payments, yet statutory redundancy payments consist of only two weeks pay per year of service and workers over the age of 66 have no entitlement whatsoever. On work-life balance there is not an entitlement to as much as one day's paternity leave, while maternity leave falls far behind European norms and parental leave remains unpaid. Increasing the staff of the labour inspectorate to 31 inspectors did not constitute a substantial increase, nor is it anything near what is required.

Is this what the Minister terms a deep and unwavering commitment to workers' rights? That is no record of which to be proud. The bottom line is that existing employment rights legislation is not being enforced and will never be enforced until the labour inspectorate has the resources and the number of staff necessary to carry out ongoing spot checks on employers to assess compliance levels. There must be an immediate increase to bring the inspectorate up to at least 75 in number.

Difficulties also exist in terms of the Labour Court. When a worker seeks to take an action for unfair dismissal, for example, he or she is confronted by the fact that it takes a minimum of about six months for a case to be dealt with by the Labour Court. I am reminded of the case of the three NCT testers at the Monaghan test centre. The Government is taking no action to deal with the anti-union actions of certain employers. Deputy Ferris referred to the case of Joanne Delaney. What has the Minister done on her behalf? The Minister is shaking his head from left to right — mostly to the right.

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