Frank Fahey (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

The amendment is opposed because its effect would be to treat as only a minor offence every instance where an employer engaged the services of a non-national in breach of employment permit regulations or requirements. The purpose behind the provision penalising employers is to correct the legal imbalance that currently exists between the employer and the employee when it comes to the law on employment of non-nationals. At present, the employee is liable to prosecution but the employer escapes without any sanction. The culpability of the employer in many of these cases is likely to be greater, given that the employer who takes on the person to work illegally holds most of the advantages over the employee in this relationship.

If the person works off the books, as it were, he or she can remain invisible to the authorities. The unscrupulous employer can take advantage of the non-national's legal status to, for example, literally save on costs such as wages and insurance and ignore the law of the land in respect of employment conditions and health and safety in the workplace. The illegal employee, on the other hand, can live under a regime of virtual servitude, with the constant threat of being uncovered by the authorities or revealed to those authorities by an employer who no longer needs his or her services or as a punishment for some perceived wrong.

One should not underestimate the negative influence for the individual in society posed by those who knowingly exploit their workforce in this way. Such exploitation is well organised and run by criminal gangs which earn much more of their profits on the backs of their illegal workforce. There are also negative economic effects on the domestic labour force, members of which may be denied the prospect of competing for certain jobs because of the illegal employment of foreign workers. We, therefore, deem the level of fines to be necessary.