Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Senator's outlining her concerns regarding workers' rights. I am not in a position to accept this amendment because it seeks a report reviewing the terms, conditions and remunerations afforded to employment holders to be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas. As I outlined on Committee Stage, conducting a review of this type of activity will be administratively highly burdensome and require a huge amount of time and resources to be dedicated to this. While I appreciate it is a really important area and something we need to get right, it would require an undue amount of resources to be put into it.

I take workers' rights very seriously and, in particular, the rights of potentially vulnerable migrant workers. That is something we need to look at. My officials can and do instruct the Workplace Relations Commission to undertake inspections to ensure that migrant workers' terms and conditions are being upheld in line with their contracts of employment and permits. As I said already today, there are really serious consequences for breaches of employment permit legislation, including the revocation of employment permits and prosecution of the employer. Penalties including fines and imprisonment are set out in legislation. To ensure the welfare of migrant workers, when an employer seeks to renew an employment permit, checks are made to ensure that the permit holder has been paid and has been treated in accordance with the terms and conditions set out in their employment contract and as per the original permit application. A permit renewal can be refused where discrepancies are discovered.

The Bill will further protect migrant workers from unfair treatment with the new change-of-employer option. This allows workers to move to a new employer after a prescribed period, planned to be nine months, without the need to apply for a new permit. This flexibility and transferability will strengthen the employment rights of migrant workers.

The Senator had specific concerns about the replacement of permanent staff by migrant workers. The purpose of the employment permit system is to assist economic growth by facilitating the filling of key skills gaps which cannot be filled using domestic or EEA labour markets. Maintaining the State's commitment to the EU community-preferred principle means that employers wishing to access the employment permit system must demonstrate that at least 50% of their staff are either from Ireland or another EEA country. If any employee - an employment permit holder or otherwise - experiences a breach of their employment rights, they should make a complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission. Ireland has really strong employment rights legislation. That is why I would encourage all workers with any concerns to exercise their rights in this regard.

The Senator specifically spoke about a comparative analysis so that we could see trends ahead of schedule and perhaps act accordingly. That is something I will discuss with her afterwards because it has considerable merit.

Given Ireland's robust employment rights framework that protects employment permit holders as well as Irish and EEA workers, I do not intend to accept the amendment.