Alex White (Labour)

The Government has indicated it intends to publish two important employment Bills in the coming weeks or months. Will the Leader indicate to this House the likely dates of publication of the Employment Law Compliance Bill 2007 and the Employment Agencies Regulation Bill 2007. There is consensus in the wider debate on immigration that it is vital that employees who come to this country not be exploited and have the same standards applied to them as are applied to Irish employees. There is no better way of allaying fears over Irish workers being undercut by foreign workers, as is often alleged to occur, than to have properly enforced legislation in place to ensure those who come to Ireland have proper terms and conditions of employment.

I have referred previously to the Agency Workers Bill, which is proposed to be introduced soon. If it and the relevant EU directive, which has not been supported by Ireland to date, were implemented, they would ensure that workers brought to Ireland by agencies would be employed by employers rather than those agencies. We have a proper licensing system for employment agencies and there are many very professional and solid agencies with a respectable and reputable background, but there are others that are not so respectable and reputable and therefore need to be dealt with in legislation.

Will the Leader invite the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment or, perhaps more appropriately, the Minister of State with special responsibility for labour affairs, to the House to explain why Ireland, along with just two other EU countries, has no legislation to provide for the equal treatment of agency workers? Why have we blocked the draft EU directive to ensure the issue will be addressed? Will the Minister explain the lamentable attitude of the Government to this directive?