Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)

I, too, broadly support this amendment. Basically, the position is that if a hirer signifies a wrong comparable employee, or if a hirer in some other way does not pay the agency worker that to which he or she is entitled, that worker will then have an action against the employment agency which is designated the employer, even though it is the hirer who is at fault. The case will have to be taken against the employment agency, which will then have to take a case against the hirer. That would require two sets of proceedings and the Minister should do what he can to avoid that. As Deputy Nulty said, this was dealt with neatly in the UK legislation, which I examined some time ago. While I have not read it recently, my impression was that it dealt with this issue much more neatly than is proposed in the Bill.

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