Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Since 2015, over one third of WRC investigations detected breaches of employment law. The data reveal fairly starkly the dark underbelly of the Irish economy. We are all agreed that this needs to be stamped out. In the past six years, the WRC has detected breaches in more than one third of all of its investigations. Of the investigations, 35.9% found breaches by employers regarding the non-payment of the minimum wage, employment permits, the protection of young persons, annual leave and public holiday entitlements and unpaid wages, in addition to other breaches. Sectors such as the food and drink, retail, wholesale, hair and beauty, and construction sectors have seen consistent breaches of employment law in recent years. These figures do not paint a pretty picture but what they do say to me very clearly is that we need more inspectors. Therefore, I am going to put the question to the Tánaiste again: if the figure is 90, can he outline to us when we are going to reach it? Given the good work done by the WRC inspectors and the fact that they are uncovering breaches of employment law, would it not be better to consider improving on the complement of 90?

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