Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I do wish to focus on this issue. The consequence of the Government failing to act on the agreement with the International Transport Workers Federation is that workers like Jose Pame Salandron are not able to vindicate their rights in the WRC. This is a guy who was working 80 or 90 hours a week regularly. He went to the WRC and he was awarded, wrongly, €14,000 under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997. The case then went to the Labour Court and it was stated that this context was not covered. This is accurate. His award was then cut down to €4,000. Mr. Salandron may now be taking a case against the State, which could cost it money under the Francovich damages' principle, which he is seeking, because of the State's failure to transpose the directive. The Minister of State indicated that this is going to be done as soon as is practicable. In answering a parliamentary question from Deputy Barry in January, however, he said, "This proposal will be included as a miscellaneous amendment in a legislative instrument in the Spring". When is this going to be? I presume it was the Spring of 2022 that was referred to and not the Spring of 2023. The Government is leaving migrant workers extremely vulnerable to continued massive exploitation and to working 80 to 90 hours a week. When is this measure going to be progressed?

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