David Norris (Independent)

I could not dig out any clear research pertaining to the conditions which apply. Perhaps the Minister of State and his colleagues will be able to point us in the right direction. I have found comparable stuff from our neighbouring island, however, the attitude of which we seem to be mimicking. Agency workers in the United Kingdom are paid an average of 68% of the earnings of directly employed workers. They have fewer entitlements. They do not get basic human things like medical treatment, pensions or time off. As agency workers are younger, on average, they are more vulnerable and have less control over the work they do. Work patterns of this nature are spreading into areas such as construction, retail, distribution, transport, logistics, food processing and hotel and hospitality services in which agency workers have not traditionally been involved in this country.

There are many aspects to this interesting problem. I am concerned about the involvement of agency workers in the hotel sector, for example. While I love dearly all my fellow human beings, including Slovenians, Poles and Lithuanians, I find it rather curious to be met with halting English when I go into an hotel. People who come to this country are sometimes disappointed when, rather than getting the traditional Irish welcome, they get an eastern European saying "Yes, you want?" or something similar. Workers from other countries are pretty vulnerable because they are not always in tune with, or aware of, the employment conditions which apply in this country.

I am not sure if it has been mentioned that 520 employment agencies operate in this country which has a population of approximately 4.2 million. Poland, which has a population ten times that of Ireland, has slightly more than 700 agencies or not even twice as many as Ireland. There seems to have been a bloom of agencies on Ireland's troubled employment waters. Just ten of this country's 520 agencies were inspected in 2005. There were 21 inspections in 2006 and six in the first half of 2007, which was after the former Deputy, Joe Higgins, unearthed the problems faced by the Gama workers. The meanest aspect of this matter is that employers frequently employ agency workers for 11 months before kicking them out, which means they do not have to fulfil their obligations, and employ another set of temporary workers. Such behaviour is in flagrant defiance of the intention of the Oireachtas, regardless of whether that intention is enacted in the legislation. This is really awful.

Like my good friend, Senator Callely, I am a north-sider from Dublin. I was concerned to read an article recently written by Matt Cooper about Arnotts, which is the best department store in this city, closely followed by Clerys and to hell with the south side.