Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)

Someone can be refused a licence for reasons on indictment in this State or another state. Three or four categories are set out in the Bill. Is the licence automatically refused in these cases or does discretion exists? Is it black or white? Discretion is important because an agency may have branches located in various countries and abuse of workers may occur in one branch. The Irish branch of the agency may be 100% straight in what it does and compliant with Irish law. Does the Minister have discretion in this point? I am not implying that the Minister of State does not have common sense but we must write this into law. It must be written into law because the Minister of State will not be there forever, especially if Fine Gael gets its way. The Oireachtas should have a role in setting out the principle of this point and we can deal with that on Committee Stage. Certain points need to be tidied up.

I feel very strongly about the licensing situation in this country. An agency should be required to get a licence under Irish jurisdiction if it wants to set up in this country. We must have control of this. Why bring forward laws if we do not enforce them? People have been treated very badly in the past. Members have met them when they come into our offices looking for help. It is difficult for Members to know where to go with some of these matters. I accept it is getting easier to find the right place to go but it can be awkward because they are very often coming in from companies we know. It is awkward but we have a duty to deal with this. The clearer the law is, the easier it will be for us to follow procedures. I suggest including in this Bill a requirement for any public representative of any party at any level to bring it to the attention of the relevant authority. There should be an onus on us rather than allowing us to decide to park it on our office desk. It is important that people are treated properly in the workplace and not abused.

I welcome comments from the Minister of State, Dara Calleary, who proposes to introduce amendments so that agency workers cannot be brought in when people are on strike. Will this be a feature of the Bill? It shows how agency staff can be used and abused to fill a gap.

Another point relates to how agency staff are treated by permanent staff. The second part of the legislation, which deals with entitlements, may put some of these issues to bed. If workers think agency staff have lesser rights than they do, it can be abused. It is a pity that happens. It would be necessary to have legislation to deal with this immediately and to set out the entitlements in black and white. There is no reason this should go on for years. The EU legislation came into force in 2008 and Ireland was one of the countries which delayed the passing of that legislation. I never fully understand the reason we delayed progress in that area.

We can learn from the example of other countries who have regularised the employment agency sector and who may have a longer history of using employment agencies to source staff. This has become a significant issue in Ireland, particularly in the construction sector in the past three to five years and since EU enlargement in 2004. Ireland has been slow to react.

I have been an employer and I also have experience of being an employee so I know both sides. One must be black and white with regard to employment law. This is a reasonable Bill and will be a good Bill with a few changes but it will not inflict massive costs on any employer. The employer organisations seem to be happy with the Bill as it does not impose a burden. I know the Minster of State, Deputy Kelleher, is in favour of not imposing too much red tape on the sector.

I understand the duty is on the employer to check whether an agency is licensed and that the point of contact is the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. If an employer contacts the Department, how quickly will he or she receive a response and will that response be in writing or will the information be available as a list on a website? If an employer contacts the Department and is informed the agency in question has a licence and can be used, can the employer be assured that the list and the information is up to date? An employer often needs to make a decision over a weekend or decides on a Monday that a person is needed for the week and he or she is unable to wait hours for an answer or a week to wait for a letter in the post. It should not be the case of waiting for Deputies to submit parliamentary questions which will not be answered, because the information will be needed immediately and should be up to date. There is no point in a list that is a year out of date. Does the legislation indicate the duration of an employment agency licence?

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