Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 44: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment his views on whether the Labour Inspectorate has the number of inspectors necessary to carry out the duties in respect of the increased workforce and in particular to inspect the treatment of the growing number of migrant workers here. [23479/06]

Seán Ryan (Dublin North, Labour)
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Question 78: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment his views on whether Ireland is meeting its obligations under the Labour Inspection Convention 1947, and other relevant international agreements, in relation to the number of labour inspectors; the progress which has been made in hiring the additional labour inspectors announced earlier in 2006; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23507/06]

Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 44 and 78 together.

Article 10 of the Labour Inspection Convention 1947 provides that the number of labour inspectors shall be sufficient to secure the effective discharge of the duties of the inspectorate and shall be determined with due regard for the importance of the duties which inspectors have to perform, in particular; the number, nature, size and situation of the workplaces liable to inspection; the number and classes of workers employed in such workplaces; the number and complexity of the legal provisions to be enforced; the material means placed at the disposal of the inspectors; and the practical conditions under which visits of inspection must be carried out in order to be effective.

The ratio of labour inspectors to the workforce shows a marked improvement over the past ten years from one inspector for every 150,000 people at work in 1996 to one for every 67,000 at work at the end of 2005. This is against an increase of over 500,000 in the workforce in the same period.

The assignment of previously announced additional labour inspectors was completed in November 2005. That brought the complement of serving inspectors to 31. The increase in staffing represents almost a doubling of the number of labour inspectors in the last two years.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment circulated a discussion document, Mandate and Resourcing of the Labour Inspectorate, to the social partners in early 2005. That document was the basis for further consideration by the employment rights compliance group, ERCG. The ERCG, which comprised representatives of the social partners, including the CIF and SIPTU, together with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the Department of the Taoiseach and the Department of Finance, has completed its report. The report, together with the resourcing of the labour inspectorate and options to enhance the effectiveness of our employment rights compliance regime, were considered in the social partnership discussions which concluded recently.

A major package of measures has been agreed by the parties, including the establishment of a new, statutory office dedicated to employment rights compliance, a trebling in the number of labour Inspectors, greater co-ordination among organisations concerned with compliance, new requirements in respect of record keeping, enhanced employment rights awareness activity, the introduction of a new and more user-friendly system of employment rights compliance, increased resourcing of the system and higher penalties for non-compliance with employment law.

The number of labour inspectors will be progressively increased from 31 to 90 by end 2007, as part of an initiative to increase the staffing resources of the employment rights bodies generally. Inspectors will be specially selected and trained and will be deployed on a regionalised basis. In addition, the new office will be provided with legal, accounting and other administrative support to ensure its effective functioning.

Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the announcement of the increase in the number of labour inspectors to 90 in the partnership talks. The Minister should have done this some time ago, but well done, nevertheless. I have a couple of questions arising from that. How soon will recruitment begin? Will it be pretty much immediately? Is he talking about the end of 2007 in terms of completion of the recruiting and training process?

In terms of the number, will the Minister give some indication as to how he arrived at the figure of 90? Did he adopt a particular model or what device did he employ to arrive at the figure? Was it simply a matter of horse-trading among the partnership talks participants, with an arbitrary figure being agreed on? Finally, is language a feature of the new inspectorate? Will some of the inspectors come from the prominent immigrant countries such as Poland and Latvia, or at least will some be required to have a competency in the languages of those majority immigrant countries?

Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy has asked about the system of recruitment and the time period over which it will be completed. Recruitment will commence pretty shortly. It is intended that the full 90 will be in place by the end of 2007. I remind the Deputy — Members who have been attending Question Time will be aware — that there is a considerable amount of work to be done in the process of recruiting people and in training labour inspectors. That was a feature in deploying the 31 inspectors currently in place. The figure of 90 was arrived at in view of the recent history in this area where there were clearly a number of challenges particularly new to us, not least the one mentioned by Deputy Morgan as regards people from other countries who have come to work here. While a preponderance of these people come from three countries, at this stage the Irish economy sustains workers from a great variety of backgrounds and locations with different languages. It certainly would be difficult to provide these skills across the entire labour inspectorate. Currently the practice is to deploy interpreters where necessary. That is being done quite successfully at this stage. Undoubtedly, this is a question that will be looked at in the context of the recruitment of the additional officers. It is intended that the new office will have considerably wider resources available to it in legal and accountancy terms as compared to the situation previously.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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On what statutory basis is it proposed to establish this new inspectorate for workers' rights? What is the Minister of State's current thinking on this? Will it be a stand-alone body or will it be linked to the Labour Court or the Labour Relations Commission? What will be the relationship between the Health and Safety Authority and the Labour Relations Commission, not to mention the Labour Court?

Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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The background to this arises from the document The Mandate and Resourcing of the Labour Inspectorate. Very considerable work was done in this document and the specific difficulties which had arisen were pointed out clearly. Some of these difficulties related to issues such as the poor quality of payslips that were acceptable under the previous regime. Much work remains to be done in that area. It is the intention that the new body and other bodies would liaise and have good relations with the Health and Safety Authority and with several Departments. An interchangeability of information should be facilitated under the new arrangement. This presents challenges and difficulties, but it will be dealt with in the legislative context.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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What is the timetable for the establishment?

Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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The undertaking is to begin immediately, but there are some challenges to be taken on in ensuring that all factors are taken into account and that all information is available to the inspectorate.

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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What is the evidence of non-compliance? In ten years, we have moved from one inspector for every 150,000 workers to one inspector for every 20,000. That represents seven times more inspection per head of the workforce. This is an extraordinary increase in inspection. Does the Minister of State have any hard evidence of much more abuse? We have had some extraordinary high-profile abuse cases, but it seems that those are issues of poor detection rather than a shortage of inspectors. Is this move — a predictable decision to create a new office with more staff — the way to get to grips with the problem? I would like to see some evidence to underpin this move.

We will not increase compliance burdens, about which the Department is also concerned. We will have intelligent systems for identifying wrongdoing rather than having many people operating systems that are not up to best practice.

Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I presume that Deputy Bruton is not telling me that we will now have too many inspectors. We need to acknowledge, not just on the basis of the high-profile cases but on the basis of other evidence, that there were difficulties. It is incumbent on the Government to address those issues.

An element of Deputy Morgan's question related to the manner in which the figure of 90 was reached. I agree with Deputy Bruton that it is a very strong response to the difficulties that have arisen. It arose because the Government, along with the social partners, is committed to ensuring that the work of the labour inspectorate is done in an efficient and timely manner. Everyone in the House would agree that is the appropriate way to proceed. There are good reasons to employ the best detection methods to ensure that everyone is treated fairly, especially in a multicultural workforce. However, we also need to acknowledge that the document found that there were major shortcomings besides the need for additional inspectors and these will also be addressed.

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Has the Minister of State statistics on the extent of non-compliance?

Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I will provide the Deputy with some information on that.

Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister of State gave me good information, but he did not answer how he arrived at the figure of 90. Is the figure a threshold or a ceiling? If the level of immigration continues, will he consider extending it beyond 90? Does he expect the level of enforcement and enforcement actions by inspectors to increase as a consequence of the new recruiting process?

Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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There will undoubtedly be an increase in inspections, but the greater challenge is to ensure that workers coming into the country and others in the workforce are aware of their entitlements. That kind of information must be disseminated in a much more user-friendly fashion than has been the case heretofore.

The figure of 90 was arrived at by consensus, as is the case with all social partnership agreements. Everyone came to the table with an acknowledgement that there was a need for an increase. Nobody suggests that this figure will be deficient. Deputy Bruton's question illustrates that very well.