Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I accept that the Ceann Comhairle has ruled amendment No.18 out of order. While we cannot move it, it is important that we record our deep concerns, shared by trade unions, about this section of the Bill. We referred briefly to it earlier, but the provision which allows agencies to employ people on a permanent contract and only pay them 50% of what they were paid on their last assignment means that they can permanently have a group of employees for whom the central thrust of the Bill simply does not apply. In that context, it completely undermines the Bill. If I represented an employment agency, I would see this as a way around almost all the provisions of the Bill.

The Minister has said agencies employing workers on a permanent basis is not a widespread phenomenon in Ireland. However, what is to stop them from doing so now? The Bill improves things for agency workers to a degree, although not as far we would like. I accept that the Minister has taken on board some of the points made on Committee Stage, but this opt-out of the central provision of the Bill essentially allows agencies a way around equality and all the provisions of the Bill. They can establish a permanent group of employees who will be paid less, no matter for whom they are working and to whom the provisions of the Bill simply will not apply. It is not, as the Minister seems to be suggesting, just when they are not working. The point is that the central equality provision of the Bill does not apply to them if they are employed permanently by the agency. The only requirement is that they must, during the periods they are not working, receive 50% of what they received on their last assignment. What they received on their last assignment might have been substantially lower than what a directly employed worker was paid for doing the same job.

This is a recipe for a coterie of workers to work alongside others paid twice what they are paid, or God knows what. It is a complete opt-out clause in respect of the equality provision included in the Bill. If we do not grasp this, the agencies will. We will have a new mechanism that will allow them to circumvent the Bill and create a second-tier workforce.

See this speech in context