Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

Nobody else had the energy or commitment to address the issue as he has done. He was in Dunnes Stores in Athlone handing out his recruitment leaflets and newspaper. He got up on the platform and delivered a fine rabble-rousing speech and then departed. He travels far and wide in pursuit of disadvantage.

The motion and amendment are well couched, apart from the omission. I am glad to note the Labour Inspectorate will be expanded. Can the Minister tells us whether this has happened or when it might happen? I could not believe the suggestions was refused by the Department the year before when an offer of extra inspectors was made. If one spends one's life beseeching for measures it is odd to refuse them when they are offered. We read of this in the newspapers, although they do not always print the truth.

The Minister will hopefully bring the employment permits Bill before the Seanad and this would be very useful. We need immigrant workers and their skills, whether in growing mushrooms or cleaning floors. However, we are not using them according to their proper qualifications. Senator Quinn made this point, and I have seen many instances of people unable to use their mechanical engineering degrees or formal accountancy qualifications. They perform more lowly and menial tasks for which they are very glad to receive a wage. The economy could not operate as it does without this significant amount of labour doing the jobs for which it is difficult to get Irish people. However, the patronising aspect grates with me.

The situation with regard to Gama Construction is a shame. We had achieved a good competitive regime, whereby the NRA went way above its roads budget every year. However, we then got into a discriminatory situation whereby Gama Construction put forward tenders and clearly underbid far more experienced people who paid their workers the going rate and proper entitlements. Gama did not do likewise and got away with it. In future, if Polish firms give a good quote everybody will be tainted by the Gama situation. Every building contractor will have that issue hung around his or her head. We had a competitive regime with regard to tenders and I regret what happened and the way in which people were treated.

The last time the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ahern, was before this House, I said that the Department was too passive when dealing with the issue of migrant workers. The Department stated that it had heard no complaints from workers. It was a case of chasing the person to blame. How could there be a complaint from migrant workers? How would they find Kildare Street and the labour inspectorate? How would they speak the language and fill out the forms? They could not possibly do so, yet that was expected of them.

How could there be a formal complaint from people who speak Turkish and have never been in Kildare Street? This has changed since Deputy Joe Higgins took up their cause. A vastly more proactive stance is required from the Department, which is why I welcome developments with regard to the Labour Inspectorate and the joint labour committees. They should go out and seek discrimination rather than waiting for it to come to them. That will not happen.

I commend the Minister with regard to getting the report printed and into the hands of ordinary people. He is allowed by order of the courts to give the report to the Revenue Commissioners and the Garda Síochána, but we would like to see it made public. It must contain something extremely nefarious since Gama is making such efforts to ensure its findings are not implemented.

We keep talking about our history, but immigration difficulties and policy are a new phenomena in Ireland. We have never been in this situation before. There has been much emigration from this land and we would have wished that all of our emigrants were properly treated. However, they were not. We are now in modern times and have modern technology and ways of doing things. The national development plan will never be achieved without foreign workers who receive their proper stipend and full terms. We should not think of ourselves as great because of what we are doing. These people have skills and we need them. It is an open market and we need them more than they need us. They have every right to be treated properly and decently with civility and courtesy. Above all, in an interventionist sense, the Department should seize the high ground and go after these people to discover what their complaints are rather than sit back and wait for them to come to it. I am not referring to the Minister in particular. The Department should be much more proactive.

I wish the employment permits Bill was before the House and we should debate the issue of asylum seekers. The greatest scandal is that they cannot work. There are 400 families in 400 mobile homes in a field in Athlone looking out the window all day long. These are grown adults who are told they have no right to work. Some of them have been here four or five years and have children who are sitting examinations.