Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I will return to the issue of the Government's role. The cries were not only for a greater number of inspectors but also for sufficient legal capacity to take on unscrupulous employers who exploit workers. This requirement could not be satisfied by appointing additional inspectors without legal context or proper capacity to take on such employers in the courts. The Deputy will recall that our first attempts to address the problem with Gama Construction ended in the Supreme Court, where the matter has not yet been resolved, because we could not publish a report under the existing legal framework. It was for this reason that the legislative template had to change.

The Government adopted a constructive approach based on partnership with the social partners because it emanated from the social partnership agenda. While it remains within the aegis of the Department, it is a separate stand-alone approach which has sufficient focus to ensure compliance with employment law. It was done in a good, informative manner from a policy perspective.

The Government's approach to the consumer issue emerged from the consumer strategy group. It was not a response to the series of programmes by Mr. Eddie Hobbs but was well advanced prior to its broadcast, as anyone who reviewed the sequence of events would discover.

On labour law, I ask the Deputy to consider the number of strikes we had in the 1970s, review the performance of the Labour Court and Labour Relations Commission and assess the current status in terms of industrial conflict and the reduced number of strikes. The performance has been phenomenal.

While some agencies work well, there is scope for others to amalgamate. Why were the county enterprise boards established more than a decade ago in a policy initiative taken by the then Taoiseach, Mr. Reynolds? The reason was that people on the ground believed the larger agencies had no interest in minor enterprises of the type we discussed a few moments ago.

See this speech in context