Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On Monday, there was an article in The Irish Times that highlighted the plight of postdoctoral research workers. It really does hammer home how poorly a large number of our academic staff are being treated at the moment. There was a survey by the Irish Federation of University Teachers that showed that one in three people employed in universities is employed on a precarious work contract, hourly contracts or fixed-term contracts. This was an issue that no less a person than Simon Harris promised to fix before he became Taoiseach but here we are, four years into the life of this Government, and the situation is as bad as ever, as confirmed by The Irish Times article on Monday. The issues revolve around really poor rates of pay. These are people who have done ten years academic work and experience, who have no career progression, are on temporary contracts and even have difficulty securing entitlements like maternity leave; there is also a general lack of support in respect of issues like accommodation and career development.

Miriam Hamilton, who is the deputy general secretary of IFUT, put it very well when she said: "Researchers are spending decades on successive fixed-term contracts with no prospect of securing long-term employment in academia; many are remaining at an entry-level postdoc level-one grade for many years with no real progression routes." What is happening in practice is that a lot of these people are now choosing to leave the country. Some of our best and brightest people are leaving the country because in our universities they cannot actually secure full-time employment or career progression. Given Simon Harris's time as the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, it is entirely unacceptable that he has not dealt with and did not deal with this issue. It is the usual story of plenty of spin but no actual delivery and anyone who doubts that should read the article in Monday's edition of The Irish Times.

On a similar workers' rights-related issue, I was the only politician to attend a meeting this morning on trade union access for workers that took place in Buswells at 9 a.m. It highlighted the fact that we have the adequate minimum wage directive, which should be made law by the end of next month, but we are now clear that the Government has no plans to do that so it will be in breach of the EU's minimum wage directive. Worse than that, we know that Department officials have said that when it is implemented there will be no need for any new legislation. That is entirely wrong because, as colleagues will know, we are one of the few countries in Europe without the right to collective bargaining. Fundamental changes are needed in workers' rights. It is very clear to me that this Government has no intention of making those changes or implementing the right to collective bargaining, which is a right for which trade unions have campaigned for over 100 years.

I ask for an urgent debate on these issues. In the time that we have left we need to speak about workers' rights. I believe we need to put workers' rights at the heart of the issues for the next Government with this Government clearly having failed.