Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are a number of positive elements to the Bill that will help in improving the current system. These include the index-linking of wage thresholds to keep them in line with salary growth and the provision for additional conditions for granting an employment permit, such as training and accommodation support for migrant workers or making innovation or upskilling a condition of granting, which may decrease future reliance on economic migration.

Sinn Féin supports the fair and sensible use of employment permits where there are shortages of necessary skills in our economy. For example, on the back of a Sinn Féin motion on services for children with disabilities in March this year, a number of therapist positions, including physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists, were added to the critical skills list in June. That was a necessary and welcome intervention. However, this should only be done when necessary and should not be used if we are not first ensuring we are equipping our students with critical skills in areas where we have skills shortages and also improving the pay and conditions of workers. Doing that is important to ensure we have the requisite skill sets across our economy and to retain those skilled staff. To this end, it is vital that the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment works closely with the Departments of Education and Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, and other Departments where appropriate, in planning for future skills requirements.

While my party and I understand the need to modernise our employment permits legislation, we have some concerns about the approach the Government is taking with this Bill. As it stands, the legislation is focused solely on increasing flexibility for employers, with absolutely no attempt to protect workers' rights. Many of these issues were highlighted during pre-legislative scrutiny and in a report published by the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment, which made several vital recommendations the Minister of State seems to have ignored or disregarded. Several of those recommendations, if implemented, would grant the same basic rights to all work permit holders and protect them from serious exploitation.

I do not have time to go through each of the committee's recommendations, most of which have been dealt with by colleagues. However, there are two points I want to raise. First, the section on the mandatory grounds for refusal of employment permits needs to be strengthened. In particular, there should be mandatory refusal of a permit application for any company found to have been in breach of employment law in the previous five years. We should ensure unscrupulous employers do not have the opportunity to offend again and that they are punished for breaching employment law. Second, I would like to see the legislation amended such that before workers arrive, they are given access to a full online course on their employment rights, provided by the Department in conjunction with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU.

Sinn Féin supports the improvement of our employment permits legislation but it must be done in a progressive manner that supports and protects workers and also benefits the economy.

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