Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)

It would appear that improvements are being made in this area. However, I am not sure just how good the rights a worker working for an agency will have. As building contractors, we used to sometimes employ agency workers, for a number of reasons. We generally kept our own direct employees but, if we were under pressure and needed them, we hired agency workers. They were paid at a rate which was perhaps a couple of euro above the official rate but there was still a saving because we were not involved in their pensions, holiday pay and so on. The big advantage for the building contractor employing the agency worker is that the contractor can specify, for example, that he wants the worker from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. on Monday, does not want him on Tuesday or Wednesday, but would like him back again on Thursday at 8 a.m. to work for ten hours and would also like him to work eight hours on Friday. This was very attractive to a contractor because, as one can imagine, there might not be full-time work for a person on a site.

The sad part was that, more often than not, these workers who came on-site were generally getting less per hour than our own workers. Friction and dissatisfaction would sometimes develop because the agency worker was not being treated as well as the person who was directly employed. Agencies were able to charge a premium for their services because they could state to an employer that a worker could be taken on on a Monday but there was no requirement to keep him or her on the Tuesday. Will agencies still be able to tell workers that there is no work for them on a Tuesday but they can come back in on the Thursday, or will they be obliged to take care of employees for a full working week? Many are engaged by agencies for six to 12 months but are not always guaranteed a full working week. They might get one day's work or they might get five, there is no guarantee. That is not a very good framework within which to work. I have noticed that very few agency workers are married. Family life would not be sustainable within the structure being offered to them by the agencies. I am curious to know whether agencies will be allowed to lay people off as they please or whether they will be obliged to look after them for a full working week.

On the construction sector in general, it serves everybody better, including the client who is seeking to have a job done, if a company has its own direct employees. I argue that there has been a serious drop in the quality of workmanship in the past 20 years in the construction industry and that the overuse of agency workers and agency companies by contractors has contributed to this. In the past contractors were much more likely to have their own employees - workers they trained themselves - and they were much more au fait with what needed to be done. That was a far better arrangement. However, we should get an agency worker of higher quality if we give such workers the same rights as regular employees. The closer we can get to this, the better for everybody.

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