Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

As I said, I will obtain the exact numbers of successful and completed prosecutions for Deputy Lynch. In fact, that was one of the factors which influenced the report on mandate and resources because successful prosecutions are extraordinarily difficult to achieve due to the level of proof needed and the lack of clarity surrounding the quality of payslips required. We wish to encourage people to raise questions with the labour inspectors. Obviously, we would like them to raise questions that are relevant to the inspectors and sometimes they are not quite sure that is the case. There is a substantial requirement on the burden of proof which most frequently includes a requirement that people are prepared to give evidence. The review recommends a change in that regard to the Employment Appeals Tribunal or the Labour Court in dealing with issues of this nature. That has considerable merit and may well happen.

As regards the HSA proposal, there are 100 inspectors with that authority but many of them are specialist inspectors. There seem to be considerable advantages in having people who are in any event visiting a premises check out the additional issues of, for example, payslips and pay and conditions. If we could manage to impart to employees the information on their rights, they would be in a position to draw the matter to the attention of the inspectorate and fewer visits would be required. Undoubtedly, while there would be many more prosecutions in the short term, in the medium and long term people would comply on a much wider scale than is the case.

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