Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)

-----and in regard to the nature of employment. He has provoked good debate, which is what we need in this country. However, there is no evidence to date that in the UK, job losses have occurred as a result of the same directive that must be transposed into UK law.

I am not aware of any evidence on the record of this House or the Dáil in respect of utterances by the Minister, Deputy Bruton, in regard to job losses on this issue.

With the indulgence of the House, I will quote again from his speech:

The final derogation available under Article 5.4 of the directive recognises the voluntarist nature of industrial relations in the United Kingdom and in Ireland and was designed to meet the needs and flexibilities required in the labour market to accommodate the system in place in both countries. The derogation includes the possibility for a "qualifying period" before the principle of equal treatment would apply to temporary agency workers.

To be fair to the senior Minister, Deputy Bruton, what we are trying to do here is to protect the rights of workers, to comply with the EU directive and to do so in a way that is balanced. If there is a contention that job losses will occur directly in one specific company or entity as a result of this, I respectfully suggest I have my doubts. The evidence in terms of inward investment into Ireland by global companies, which have public affairs departments and are au fait through those departments with trends in EU legislation and transposition of EU directives, is that they are aware this legislation is on the cards and would have regard to that fact when they are making their investment decisions in Ireland. We have had some notable investment decisions and notable companies setting up here, some of whose operations would be within the sphere of employing temporary agency workers or contract workers.

I have not seen any evidence of job losses in the UK and I do not know of any public utterance by the Minister, Deputy Bruton, to this House or the other House in respect of prospective job losses in this area. If somebody has done a study or has extrapolated from UK figures, that should be put on the record or submitted to the Oireachtas Library.