Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Ceann Comhairle will be glad to hear that I am in agreement with the Deputy on this issue. We have found some common ground and we both recognise the great and important work these inspectors, and the WRC in general, are doing. They are there to make sure employees are secure in their employment and that their conditions are being met satisfactorily. That is why we value the work of the WRC and its inspectors. We are absolutely committed to increasing their numbers.

To give some context, the WRC is an independent statutory body under the aegis of my Department, which was established on 1 October 2015 under the Workplace Relations Act 2015. The WRC’s core services include: the inspection of employment rights compliance; the provision of information; adjudicating on complaints under employment protection, equality and industrial relations legislation; and the provision of mediation, conciliation, facilitation and advisory services. This is all very important work, which Deputy O'Reilly has just gone through as well.

The WRC’s inspectors are appointed by the director general with the consent of the Minister, and they exercise such powers as are conferred upon them by the Workplace Relations Act 2015. Inspectors visit places of employment and carry out investigations on behalf of the WRC in order to ensure compliance with equality and employment related legislation. These inspections arise in response to complaints of alleged non-compliance with relevant employment rights legislation, as part of compliance campaigns which focus on specific sectors or specific pieces of legislation, or from routine inspections, announced and unannounced, which act as an overall control measure. Often their work is targeted at certain key areas, which is why one might see high findings in certain sectors.

The WRC inspectorate is staffed by civil servants of my Department. WRC inspectors are ranked at executive officer, EO, and higher executive officer, HEO, level. As of 19 March 2021, there are a total of 53 WRC labour inspectors, 48 of whom are at EO level and five at HEO level. My Department is committed to ensuring adequate resourcing is provided to the WRC. For 2021, the WRC has been allocated €12,566,000 in respect of pay and €2,613,000 in respect of non-pay. This is an increase of €1 million since 2019. We have managed to make sure that increase was matched in 2019, 2020 and 2021. As the Deputy said, commitments were made as far back as 2008 and 2009 to increase the funding for WRC inspectors, which were under a different title at that time. That is what we had intended to do and we will continue to work to do that.

The national Return to Work Safely Protocol was published on 9 May 2020 in response to the Covid pandemic. The protocol supported employers and employees in putting measures in place to prevent the spread of Covid-19 in the workplace when restrictions eased. Again, this recognised the work of the inspectors. WRC inspectors carried out on-site inspections in support of the protocol and combined this work with their primary statutory employment related work. In 2020, the inspectorate division of the WRC carried out over 7,000 inspections in many different areas and has recovered €1,700,000 in unpaid wages. That is only one part of their work, the other being conditions and so on. This work continues in 2021.

We will engage with the new chairman of the WRC and with the director general on a regular basis to make sure we can complement the WRC's work and provide the number of people it needs. An appointments process for new inspectors is ongoing at the moment through the Public Appointments Service and in conjunction with the director general. We hope to beef up the numbers because we are committed to doing so. As the Deputy pointed out, it is very important that we do this.

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