Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I move:

That Seanad Éireann,

—recognising the important contribution being made by immigrants to our current prosperity but noting the alarming number of reports of exploitation and abuse of immigrant workers and the assertion by the Government that such alleged exploitation was only investigated after a complaint was made;

—condemns all such exploitation and abuse of guests in our country;

—deplores the failure of the Government to adequately provide for the needs of immigrant workers, the inordinate delay in appointing adequate numbers of industrial inspectors and the apparent absence of any proactive system to prevent abuse and exploitation;

—demands immediate action by the Government to ensure that all employers of immigrant workers operate within both the spirit and letter of Irish labour law; and

—calls for immediate legislation to ensure that all immigrant workers are aware of their rights and have access to effective remedies when those rights are threatened.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Fiontar, Trádála agus Fostaíochta. This motion was put forward due to serious public concern that toleration exists for a de facto underclass of people who are at work but unprotected from the worst predatory instincts of unscrupulous employers. There is almost one horror headline story each week.

I do not wish to encroach on the territory of the courts but a construction company has been accused of wrongdoing. The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Martin, is aware of the conclusions of his own inspectors. I am aware that he is precluded from revealing much on this issue. That the court judgement ordered the document to be circulated among a number of bodies, including the DPP, suggests that the company in question did not get a clean bill of health.

A story from Donegal described people ending up penniless, living in hostels and dependent on the kindness of locals. Instances of exploitation in the agricultural sector were revealed by a local priest. The appalling treatment of domestic service workers is intermittently reported. It is an unfortunate characteristic of this country that action is taken slowly and tardily.

The work permit system was appropriate for a time when a small number of people were occasionally required by an employer to perform specific jobs. An example of this is the case of employees of ethnic restaurants. The connection between permit and employer was clear in such situations. Ethnic or family connections may also have existed. However, a system which dealt with perhaps a few hundred has been overtaken by the huge numbers of people now involved with migrant labour.

The numbers have decreased slightly since the accession of the new EU member states but not to the extent forecast by the Minister's predecessor. I remember the frequent claims by the Tánaiste and former Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Harney, that the number would drop dramatically.

The arrival here of immigrant workers from the new accession states and from outside the EU is not a negative phenomenon. Unemployment in this country hovers at 4%. Despite the immigration of 50,000 to 60,000 EU workers and around 30,000 workers from outside the EU, the labour market continues to appear capable of absorbing these numbers. At issue are not immigrant workers but the system we put in place to protect them.

The numbers are enormous, as the following figures from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment's website reveal. In 1999, 6,250 work permits were issued, the number increasing to 47,000 in 2003 and decreasing to 34,000 in 2004. During the first three months of this year, approximately 6,000 permits were issued, which suggests a yearly total of 24,000. While this represents a decrease on previous numbers, it is significantly greater than the figure for 2000.

This issue did not arise suddenly this year but has been present for a long time. As such, we have had a lot of time to deal with it. It is tragic that our response has not been generous or sensitive. The fundamental problem is that a permit linking employee to employer is close to a system of bonded labour. If the employer is not free to leave, his or her negotiating position vis-À-vis the employer is lost. The alternative is to return to unemployment in the employee's home country.

In a civilised society those exploited by employers may leave and be supported by a generous welfare system. This State decided not to permit anybody with fewer than three years' residence or a close Irish connection access to our welfare system. By doing so people treated badly by an employer were effectively given the options of returning home, starving or putting up with the situation. Over the last number of weeks hair raising allegations have been made about a company with which the Minister and I are familiar due to a major construction project in a constituency which he represents and I endeavoured to represent. These practices are disturbing and I repeat they should not happen.

It is important to point out that there is no perfect system. However, one does not have to be an international authority to recognise where problems will arise. They will arise when people have limited language skills or where they come from countries where there is not a strong culture of rights for workers. Courtesy of an informative website, namely, that of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, I was surprised to learn of the countries from which our non-EU workers come. In 2004, some 1,000 permits were issued to people form Bangladesh, 2,000 permits were issued to people from Romania, 2,000 were issued to people from Ukraine and nearly 900 were issued to people from Moldova. All those workers are welcome here. However, it is astonishing that there is no information leaflet available in Bengali, Romanian, Turkish, Bulgarian, Ukrainian or Moldovan. According to the website, information is available in Irish, English, Chinese, Czech, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese and Russian. I am not sure about Moldova and the language spoken there and I do not want to make an issue about it. There are 2,000 Ukrainians here and given that the Ukrainian language dates back a thousand years, it seems astonishing that we do not have literature available for those people in their language. That would seem a simple provision.

Another simple provision would be to ensure personnel are available in sufficient numbers and with appropriate briefs to ensure these people are properly looked after. I was surprised to discover that in 1932 the Department had two senior inspectors and ten industrial inspectors. By 1965 that number had risen to one chief inspector, four senior inspectors and 16 industrial inspectors. Today there are 21 inspectors with a promise of ten more. We need to consider the complexity of the issues involved, a major issue being the complexity of our industrial workforce. These inspectors cover not only the building and manufacturing industry, but the catering industry, the hotel industry and agriculture and fisheries. There are only 21 inspectors to monitor those industries.

I would like the Minister to explain the reason the urgent demand of the trade union movement for additional staff, articulated over a number of years, was delayed deliberately by his Department last year. Jack O'Connor, the president of SIPTU, is on record as saying that the announcement by the Minister, Deputy Martin, of 11 new staff was very belated, given that the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment had blocked moves to significantly increase the number of inspectors last year, last year being 2004. We knew in 2004 that problems were arising. We knew then that there were problems of abuse and misuse of workers. However, the Department's response was to say "No" to the call for additional staff. It is bad enough not to have enough inspectors but then an extraordinary phrase emanated from the Department to the effect that it can only take action when it receives a complaint. When we do not publish rudimentary literature in the languages of potential complainants, we can be sure we will not receive complaints. If we do not receive complaints, nothing happens.

The first simple measure is to make sure that if there is a significant community of immigrant workers here, they are informed of their rights by the State in the language with which they are most comfortable. There is no point in talking about countries like Bangladesh where a large number of people can speak English. Being able to do rudimentary business, such as working a cash register in a restaurant in an airport is not the same as being able to assert one's rights. I would not like to have to argue my fundamental rights in labour law as Gaeilge. I have reasonably good Irish but I would not like to be asked to do that. For people whose knowledge of English would probably be a good deal more limited than my knowledge of Irish, arguing for their rights in English is an impossible task.

Once we decided we would participate in the world market in terms of labour mobility, our first obligation was to let people know that. Our second obligation was to transform the value system of the Department from one of permitting to one of protecting. We want people to come here. We encourage and need people to work here. We could have the best part of 100,000 jobs vacant here if we did not have immigrant workers. Such vacancies would reduce our capacity to create wealth. We would not create wealth without those immigrant workers. We need these people and should provide them with literature in their own language. We should take a proactive position which would require employers to affirm that they are in compliance with all the provisions of labour law. Such law provides for inspectors to make random checks wherever people are working. It sets out a framework whereby people can come here legitimately to work, whether they be EU citizens or from outside the EU, and have access to welfare services, if there is any evidence of a reasonable dispute between an immigrant worker and an employer where the worker is not being given his or her legal provisions. We need to meet three provisions, namely, a guarantee that immigrant workers will not be penniless; a guarantee they will have access to literature in their own language; and the proactive, vigorous enforcement of the law by industrial inspectors. These provisions would alleviate problems in this area. I hope the Government's proposal to put in place a proper immigration system based on an intelligent assessment of our needs will address other problems in this area.

The idea that a future immigration policy would be based only on accepting people with skills would be grossly unfair. It would be wrong to suggest we would maintain a two tier system where graduates and people with high skills would have the right to come here. Most of the 100,000 immigrant workers who are here are in jobs that do not require third level or even second level qualifications. They are engaged in basic services, mostly jobs that Irish people do not want to do any more. If we are going to allow those people only to come in under the old system, they will continue to be exploited. We must ensure that anybody who comes to work here has rights, has those rights vindicated, understands those rights and believes that the power of the State will ensure that once they do a decent day's work they get decent treatment from their employers.