David Norris (Independent)

I support my colleagues who raised the issue of migrant workers. It is a matter I have raised previously on the Order of Business. During the debate on the Immigration and Naturalisation Bill, I brought the question of work permits to the attention of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. As a result of the fact that work permits are in the possession of employers, they are frequently withheld and employees are told the permits may be cancelled. It is a form of blackmail and the working conditions of migrant workers are close to slavery.

I heard a woman on the radio this morning who had to sleep on a mattress in a passageway. She worked 12 hours a day looking after children and fulfilling domestic tasks, before being taken out to do contract cleaning to earn money for her employers. It is an appalling situation. The work permit issue should be examined.

I am also seeking a debate in the new year on the issue of licensing laws and practice. I got into trouble for saying this before but I have to say that in the area in which I live it is a serious matter. Yet again in today's newspapers there is a report of a licence being granted over the objections of local people and the Garda Síochána. It may be that it was mandatory to grant the licence but I do not know.

In the past, such licences have been granted over the objections of the Garda Síochána, local authorities and local residents. The reports are horrifying. They refer to elderly stall-holders being attacked and abused. When stall-holders arrive in the morning they find excrement and urine under their stalls. This is dangerous and unhealthy. Why should people have to put up with it? The whole of Parnell Street is littered with off-licences.

I ask the Leader to request the Minister for Foreign Affairs to make inquiries about five people known as the "Miami Five". I have always deprecated the use of geographical locations and numerals to suggest that people are innocent but this is what these people have been called. They are detectives and, as such, agents of the Cuban state, who have acted in light of the fact that Cuba has been subjected to severe bombing attacks by people from Florida, with American assistance. One of the people involved in the orchestration of these operations, a man named Orlando Bosch, admitted to being implicated in the bombing of an aeroplane in which 72 civilians were killed. He was pardoned by the former US President, George Bush senior.

Finding this offensive, the Cuban Government sent people to locate information in Miami about possible further bombing attacks on the scale of Omagh. The information was then passed to the American authorities who did nothing about the people who were planning the bombing, but arrested the detectives who have been sentenced to life imprisonment. The case is ongoing. I ask the Leader to request the Minister for Foreign Affairs to examine the possibility of sending observers to this case. It is time the world knew about the kind of double standards America has with regard to terrorism. This was a case of a state protecting itself against terrorism.