Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Members who contributed to the debate. I will finish with where I started earlier. The Bill was required to bring legal clarity to the situation of the au pair exchanges in Ireland. At present, there is no definition of an au pair under Irish legislation and the absence of such a definition has created a legal lacuna for both host families and au pairs. The Workplace Relations Commission ruling in March 2016 on au pair payments threatens to undermine the tradition of au pair exchanges. This issue affects 20,000 families who use au pairs. In effect, they are criminalised by the ruling. That is where I started and I will finish on that point.

I will respond to some of the comments made in the debate. Obviously, I am quite naive to think that I am elected to be a legislator. I came here to legislate and to work with like-minded people who will wish to legislate with me. That is my motivation and ethos. Let us stop the grandstanding. There are families who depend on the support of au pairs through the cultural and educational exchange. I am not a solicitor or a barrister. I worked with other people to draft the Bill so I will take all of the flaws on board. However, there is no flaw that is not unresolvable. We can work through this with amendments.

One of the first was mentioned by the Minister of State, Deputy Breen. I thank him for raising it and I thank him for sharing his time with us, but I believe there are solutions to all that he said. When I brought this Bill forward I hoped it would be accepted by the Minister, Deputy Zappone, and supported by the Minister of State, Deputy Breen, but it has been the other way around. Fine Gael has addressed the Bill as a working relations matter and I respect that interpretation. However, we have laid out the lodgings as €54. That is probably the crux of the problem. We have undervalued the value of the lodging. The sum of €54 is a huge part in this. Deputy Coppinger is looking at me but €54 for board and lodging for somebody for a week is way below the cost at this time. I did a little research and in Drumcondra it is €180. Perhaps that is something we should examine for the future.

Deputy Sherlock spoke about my modus operandiin introducing the Bill. There was a genuine reason for bringing it forward. It was not agencies or the like, but the families that are affected. I am aware that exploitation is taking place. I watched the "Prime Time" programme and I support the motivation of the Immigrant Council. I acknowledge there was abuse. However, I am speaking for the 20,000 families who buy into what Deputies Bríd Smith, Maureen O'Sullivan and Fiona O'Loughlin have engaged in - cultural and educational exchange. It is where one embraces somebody into one's house, shares one's family with them and with whom one breaks bread at the dining room table. One shares the culture of what is good in Ireland. As Deputy Mattie McGrath said, it is a thousand welcomes. That is what I am talking about. I am not talking about the employer-employee relationship, because that breaks the spirit of what the au pair system is about.

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