Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I am delighted to have an opportunity to discuss the Employment Law Compliance Bill 2008. I congratulate the Minister on introducing the Bill and having such a comprehensive debate on it.

Having listened to a considerable amount of debate on the Bill in recent weeks, I am somewhat disconcerted to find many speakers on the Government and the Fine Gael benches make a virtual concerted attack on the legislation with scarcely a mention of workers. Approximately 98% of the time those speakers considered the Bill from the perspective of employers. Obviously, it is extremely important to ensure that we maximise the amount of employment in this country, but we do not wish to do so at the expense of undermining workers rights.

Much legislation has been put in place on the minimum wage, working time and other employment legislation. We must take a principled position, and if we put in place legislation to provide for certain rights for workers, we must uphold it and put in place a mechanism to ensure it is upheld. I understand that is the context in which the legislation is being introduced, so that the enforcement of the law is on a statutory basis.

I can outline some horrendous cases of human exploitation. For example, SIPTU held a conference for hotel workers on 18 February. In many ways catering is the area that is most vulnerable currently. Some of the issues raised by hotel workers who attended the SIPTU open day in Dublin on hotel workers rights included long working hours, payment below the minimum wage and no rest breaks.

Hotel staff are among the most exploited and lowest paid workers in the State. NERA found that approximately 80% of hotels were breaking employment laws. The branch organiser, Mr. Paul Henry, said that at least 60% to 70% of hotel workers were non-Irish and that this increased their vulnerability. They are particularly vulnerable at present. He said the union had encountered a substantial increase in requests for help from workers in non-union hotels in recent weeks. He also said: "There has been a steady increase from early December and since Christmas it has been relentless."

He outlined that housekeeping staff had to fight for vacuum cleaners, no porters were available for heavy lifting and the supervisor always screamed at staff that they were working too slowly. Within a month of starting work, one lady's wages were cut twice but if anybody complained to the boss, he or she was told to find another job. She was very afraid as she was in the country on a work permit. SIPTU took up that case, among others, and outlined the details of how matters had improved as a result.

Down the road in the Gresham Hotel many of the most senior staff have been put on short-term work and told there is no work even though we are coming into the busy holiday season from St. Patrick's Day on when tourist numbers increase. People have been recruited in their place and they have been told they must leave for a month. When that month is up, they will be told they must go for another month because of the lack of work, but other staff will be recruited at or below the minimum wage. This is the human side of the coin.

These people are trying to earn a living. They provide a good service, but they are being discriminated against. We must get the balance right in this area. While flexibility is important in the catering area, we cannot, as legislators, allow the situation return to the old days of William Martin Murphy where workers have no rights. We cannot return to the days of Dickens and the Mr. Gradgrind syndrome. That era is over. We must get the balance right and that is what this legislation attempts to do.

We need this legislation because we have not got the balance right to date. The 2007 and 2008 reports of the National Employment Rights Authority, NERA, are a litany of exploitation in this country. The trade union movement has been pressing for ages, as has the Opposition, for inspectors in the workplace, but these have been as scarce as hens' teeth. People in the construction industry were dying because there were no inspectors and due to the lack of enforcement.

In other areas of the industry there was huge exploitation with regard to the minimum wage and working hours. This was happening under the watch of the Minister, Deputy Mary Harney, who was the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment at the time. She would not allow inspectors to come in. Thankfully, in 2007, we got 50 inspectors and now in 2008 we have 80 inspectors, an adequate number to carry out the job. Inspectors must have a structure under which they will operate and clear statutory guidelines to follow. This is what we are talking about in this Bill.

Towards 2016, which was negotiated by the Government with the social partners, requires the Government to introduce legislation to secure better compliance with best employment practices and standards and with existing legislation. The NERA reports of 2007 and 2008 indicate how badly this legislation is needed. The reports identified a range of blatant abuses in the workplace during those years, which are the only years for which we have information, because there was no enforcement structure in place up to that time.

The appalling vista is that these wholesale abuses in the workplace were taking place the length and breadth of the country not only in 2008, but for the entire duration of the Celtic tiger. People made vast fortunes in that time but there were no serious inspection procedures to uncover exploitation. Unscrupulous employers have taken full advantage of the absence of adequate supervision and monitoring of the workplace.

However, the Government has been the real culprit. It stubbornly refused to appoint inspectors and failed to enforce compliance with employment legislation. The National Employment Rights Authority was not appointed until 2007, and then only on an interim, non-statutory basis. It was light regulation or none — we have seen the result of that in the area of the banks and financial institutions. It was Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats ideology to let it rip in the marketplace. They allowed their developer friends to run the show and established no obstacles to greed or profit.

In those years of plenty, many people were exploited. Irish workers were underpaid in many industries and many worked on dangerous building sites. Injuries and deaths occurred in the mad rush to build properties, many of which cannot now be sold. This could and should have been avoided. I am not saying the Minister of State, Deputy Kelleher, was in charge at the time, but Ministers must accept some responsibility for the colossal number of accidents on building sites.

Non-national workers were particularly prone to exploitation. The stubborn refusal of the Government, in collaboration with the British Government, to allow the EU Temporary (Agency) Workers Directive 2002 to be enacted in member states facilitated unscrupulous employers in denying the rights of thousands of workers to proper pay and conditions of employment in Ireland and elsewhere.

The current scandal in the banking system, where the pillars of the financial establishment bent every law in the book to aggrandise themselves and in so doing destroyed the economy, has ruined people's lives and livelihoods. The lack of regulation in the financial sector has destroyed the economy and caused unemployment to rise to 354,000. This is the result of the greed of people in positions of authority in the private sector who were not subjected to any regulation. The banking scandal stems from the same principle of greed and exploitation that ravaged the workplace over a decade. Exploitation and greed did not just happen in the banking sector, but right across the board.

I would like to mention some of the more serious breaches and problems encountered by NERA in 2008. These include employers not keeping any records on employees or failing to produce records for inspection; falsifying records, including payslips and time sheets; requiring employees to work in excess of the legal limit; paying employees for significantly fewer hours than the hours actually worked; paying employees less than their legal entitlement; not providing employees with payslips; and making unlawful deductions from employees' wages.

In 2008, NERA's inspectors carried out a total of 27,900 calls, interviews and inspections. This was an increase of 96% on 2007, the year NERA was set up pending establishment on a statutory basis. NERA inspectors detected 4,629 breaches of employment law in 2008, compared to 2,344 in 2007. Arrears due, totalling €3,112,064, were recovered by NERA in 2008 and paid back to defrauded workers. The amount recovered over the two years came to over €5 million. Clearly, the sharp increase from 50 inspectors in 2007 to 80 in 2008 had a significant effect on the number of inspections and detections. NERA conducts its investigations in a fair and impartial fashion. Therefore, it is not a question of a thief arriving in the night and causing mayhem.

The main purpose of the Employment Law Compliance Bill is to put the National Employment Rights Authority on a statutory footing and give it enhanced powers and sanctions. Already, NERA has proved its worth. Statutory authority and increased powers of inspection and enforcement augur well for the protection of workers' rights and for redressing them where they are denied.

NERA also provides essential information services through its website which in the past 12 months received 1.8 million hits. This information service would not exist if the authority had not been set up. Hits are coming not just from employees making complaints, but are coming in increasing numbers from employers, who often are not aware of their obligations. It is important this information is available in a fair and balanced fashion. NERA received 115,000 calls in 2008 seeking information or making complaints, a 37% increase on 2007 and received 11,300 e-mail inquiries, compared to 5,700 in 2007.

The situation with regard to awareness of employment regulations is almost like the situation with regard to knowledge of the Lisbon treaty. There is a significant lack of information on employment rights on both sides, employers and employees. Now, at last, NERA has lanced that boil and brought into the open the fact that we have a significant sector where employers are not aware of their obligations and employees are unaware of their rights. This is particularly true in vulnerable areas of employment such as the hotel and catering industry. This will, hopefully, be addressed by both NERA and the advisory body. There is scope for a more balanced and co-operative approach in these areas.

I have heard calls for the legislation to be scrapped in its entirety. It was not only said that NERA should be put on the back burner or abolished entirely, but also that it is a quango. It would be a terrible shame to abolish it because NERA demonstrates that it is doing a great job and that there is considerable exploitation at present. Exploitation must be addressed. There is exploitation of legislation we have passed in this House and exploitation of human beings providing a service through work.

One of the major concerns of the electorate at the time of the referendum on the Lisbon treaty in June 2008 pertained to workers' rights. The Minister of State, Deputy Kelleher, will know from the Millward Brown survey that 40% of those who voted "No" did so because they had "significant concerns" over exploitation and the undermining of workers' rights. This comprised a significant issue and there was a significant campaign in this regard at the time.

There was much concern abroad over the failure of the Government to appoint workplace inspectors. This was quite a lively issue and was raised in the House continually. There was concern over the failure of the Government to protect temporary agency workers and also to protect against the threat posed in EU member states to hard-won workers' rights regarding the workers' directive. Members will all remember the Laval, Rüffert, Viking and Luxembourg cases. All these had an impact and were all related to the protection of workers in the workplace.

In December, the Taoiseach and the representatives of the EU member states put together a package of proposals to underpin a second referendum on the Lisbon treaty in the autumn. In it they promised collectively to attach "high importance" to workers' rights. This was part of the guarantees issued at the summit meeting in December.

This legislation is a significant measure towards ensuring domestic protection for Irish workers. It is important that it be passed into law and that the additional powers, including in respect of penalties, be granted to NERA without delay. A strong, well-funded and effective statutory authority will do much to reassure the trade union movement and the workforce that the Government has at last agreed to provide the necessary protection to prevent the exploitation of working men and women in Ireland.

The Labour Party has made it clear that its support for a second referendum cannot be taken for granted by the Government. Significant progress on the provision of protection for workers must be demonstrated by the Government. This legislation is a major step in the right direction.

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