Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)

It is clear that those who warned about the consequences of the last enlargement of the European Union, as outlined in the Nice treaty with regard to what the promised "mobility of capital and labour" would mean, were correct. It means there are now fewer restrictions on employers in that they can either move their enterprise to another country or gain access to cheap labour from other EU states. As Sinn Féin and others warned at the time of ratification of the treaty, the process was designed to facilitate a race to the bottom in which conditions for workers, hard won by trade union movements, would be undermined by the employment of people earning less than the norm and, in many cases, without the traditional protections that workers in more developed states enjoyed in regard to labour legislation and union membership.

The case of Irish Ferries probably best encapsulated the kinds of forces that were at work and the motivations of many employers in trumpeting the benefits of European enlargement. The same incentives lie behind the support of most employers for the reform treaty. It is rightly seen as a further loosening of national sovereignty and social control on capital that gives big business even greater freedom at the expense of workers.

It is interesting, therefore, that more and more trade unionists are realising that issues such as those under discussion are intimately connected with the loosening of control. ICTU declared only last week that it might oppose the proposed treaty because of the issue of agency workers and the growing feeling on the part of trade union members here that the downward pressure on wages and job displacement are intimately connected to enlargement in the interest of big business. IBEC has no doubt that this is the case and will once again mobilise its considerable resources in support of the treaty.

The issue of job displacement has been brought to my attention on a number of occasions. I was approached a year ago by workers in a factory in Tralee who became aware that not only had the company they worked for advertised for new staff exclusively through an agency in Poland but that the workers who were employed subsequently were earning less than them. They did not join the trade union of which the local workers were members.

When I pursued this through questions to the Minister, I was informed that the employer in question had not broken any law as he was entitled to advertise anywhere within the European Union and was under no obligation to advertise the jobs locally. The serious aspect of this matter is that local people had submitted curricula vitae and had done interviews for vacancies that had arisen previously and were not even notified thereafter. Since advertisements for the jobs in question appeared only in agencies in Poland, local workers could not apply for the positions that became available. That this could occur while the existing workforce was unaware of the conditions under which the Polish workers were employed illustrates the abuse to which the recruitment of staff through agencies can lead.

Such practices have taken place in many locations around the country. There have even been cases of entire workforces being laid off and replaced by non-Irish workers employed through agencies. One such example, which came to light because the workforce was unionised, involved Doyle Concrete in Kildare where 16 members of SIPTU were sacked and replaced by lower paid non-national workers. This came to light because SIPTU was involved, but displacement and attacks on wages and conditions generally escape national attention.

We are all familiar with sectors, such as those involving hotels, bars, catering and cleaning, in which the Irish worker traditionally employed has to a large extent disappeared. The impact of displacement in these sectors has perhaps been somewhat obscured by the fact the jobs in question were often taken by middle-aged women or students on a part-time basis. The income earned was crucial, particularly for many working-class households. Now workers in those sectors are almost invariably non-national workers employed through contract agencies. One wonders what is the economic incentive for employers in replacing one relatively low paid and poorly protected group of workers with a group of workers who are even more vulnerable. One of the concerns expressed by the union members in Tralee at that time was that the agency workers employed there refused to tell them how much they were being paid. Obviously this was done on the instructions of the employer and it raised suspicions about their being paid less than the prevailing rate.

Anyone who suggested that employers may be employing people at such low rates, or even below the minimum wage, have been scoffed at as if there was no question that any person with money here might evade legislation designed to ensure he or she abides by proper standards. Unfortunately, such fears were confirmed by figures recently released which showed that in 2006 and 2007, 296 cases of employers paying below the minimum wage were detected, but only one prosecution was taken. That is hardly a major deterrent for unscrupulous employers willing to access cheap labour through agencies. It is also likely, given the relative lack of inspectors available to monitor adherence to wage legislation, that the above figures represent a gross underestimate of the scale of abuse involved. It is clear the type of legislation proposed in this motion is urgently required.

Further proof of that, if it was needed, was provided by a comment made last night at a meeting of Louth County Council by the chairperson who claimed that non-Irish workers should be paid less for doing the same job. He was responding to a Sinn Féin motion on the same issue under discussion here. Furthermore, this man is an employer. Irish people who were forced to emigrate from this State during the past 100 years worked for similar employers who unscrupulously exploited their labour to the extent that some workers here are currently being exploited.

This legislation needs to be put through. The Government will be as guilty as unscrupulous employers unless it proactively pursues legislation that protects the rights of workers and, thus, workers from being exploited.

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