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

I agree with the Deputy that the vast majority of employers in this area are good and genuine and treat their workers extremely well. The investigations cover the cases where there might be some rogue employers. They are dealt with and followed up on. The WRC has the inspectors in place and the additional resources following budget 2022 to complement and increase its work in this area.

The scheme covers 170 vessels and approximately 149 owners. We should be very clear on that. Over the period in question, nearly every vessel or owner has been investigated. We track the scheme quite well. It was put in place to try to deal with a difficulty arising in the courts in 2015.

If we are to have a review, it should be done quite quickly. I do not see why these things have to drag on. I looked into this several months ago. I had meetings with officials from one or two relevant Departments to try to make progress, but not all of them yet. I hope to see a review quite soon. When it is done, we can either keep the scheme, make changes to it or replace it with another. To me, that could be done quite quickly.

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