Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I thank Senator Gavan for raising the issue. As the Senator is aware, the Joint Committee on Business, Enterprise and Innovation published its report on the situation of non-EEA crew in the Irish fishing fleet under the atypical worker permission scheme last December.As outlined in the report, the matters that arose regarding the non-EEA workers in the fishing industry in late 2015 required a cross-departmental and cross-agency response and the Government quickly set up an interdepartmental task force to examine the issues involved. The main recommendation of that task force was the establishment of a sector-specific atypical worker permission scheme, which is an extension of the existing atypical worker permission scheme administered by the Department of Justice and Equality.

The scheme was established and is operated through the co-operative efforts of the Department of Justice and Equality, the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation, the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. As a number of Departments are involved in the scheme it is monitored by an oversight committee with members from relevant Departments and State agencies. The Department of Justice and Equality retains responsibility for immigration matters under the scheme while the memorandum of understanding put in place, which is led by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation with relevant State enforcement bodies, provides for a rigorous and effective inspection system. This system provides, for the first time, a structured and transparent framework for the employment of non-EEA workers within defined segments of the Irish fishing fleet. The scheme sets down minimum terms and conditions of employment applicable to these workers, which are in line with the general statutory terms and conditions applicable to workers more generally in the State. Any abuses or otherwise of the specified employment conditions of a non-EEA national in the Irish fishing industry are a matter for the relevant enforcement agencies - the Workplace Relations Commission, the marine survey office of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and other appropriate authorities of the State. Inspectors of the Workplace Relations Commission, based on newly acquired powers, have been trained and equipped with support from a number of agencies to board vessels and carry out their own inspections. This has already happened.

The role of my Department in the scheme is solely in respect of maintaining the central depository of contracts and supporting documentation submitted under the scheme, in order to monitor to ensure that the cap of 500 is not exceeded in any 12 month period. To date, 262 contracts have been lodged with the central depository. The Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service has granted atypical worker permissions to 229 applicants under the scheme since its commencement in February 2016. The atypical worker permission scheme for non-EEA crew is still a relatively young scheme and further time is needed to allow the scheme to become established and to deliver on its objectives. There are undoubtedly enforcement challenges under the scheme. These challenges fall to be addressed by the appropriate enforcement agencies, and there is ongoing work in this area. Finally, cases of human trafficking are outside the scope of the scheme and must be dealt with firmly under the human trafficking legislation in order to eliminate such behaviour and to ensure that non-EEA workers in the fishing industry are only engaged in full compliance with the terms of the scheme.

Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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It is a Garda matter.

Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I reject that. This is a new scheme that was started following the work of the previous Government. Four Departments were required to implement it. There is cross-departmental co-operation on it and there is a memorandum of understanding. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine's role is to hold the numbers in the depository and to deal with matters relating to the fishing sector.I have comments on five of the key recommendations. One recommendation is that a single Government Department takes responsibility for the fishing industry. I do not think that is possible. Another is that vessels under 15 m should be included in the scheme. The reason they were not included in the first place is that vessels under 15 m tend to be smaller and generally provide local employment. It was not intended that this scheme be open to all fishing boats around the country. It was felt that some should be reserved for local employment. As someone who chaired a committee in the last Oireachtas which considered the role of coastal and island communities in the small fishing sector, the whole idea was that we would provide local employment for local people. The reconstituted task force should be considered but I am not sure that it should run in the way the Senator envisages. The report recommends that permissions be linked to the employee and not the specific vessel or owner. In that case the contract would be gone and it would be a wholly different scheme. It would not be the scheme that is in place.

Finally, it is recommended that applications should be made directly to a central registry that is open to the public. This scheme as designed is based on a contract between an individual who is a non-EEA citizen and an owner. That contract has to be signed by a solicitor, witnessed and given legal status before it can go to the Department of Justice and Equality and before that permission can be issued. The Senator is talking about designing a completely new scheme. He wants to do this before the current scheme is fine-tuned and made work. On eliminating trafficking, I have no doubt that the trafficking dealt with in recent media coverage relates to people who are not part of this scheme. That is part of the problem. They came in a different way. They were not participants in the scheme in the first place and they should be dealt with by the law. The Garda Síochána is the appropriate authority to deal with that particular scenario.