Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)
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Question 85: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if his attention has been drawn to the call from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions for improved regulation of recruitment and placement agencies to ensure protection of workers' rights and avoid a race to the bottom on pay and conditions; if he intends to act on the call from ICTU; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12085/05]

Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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As part of the Government's commitments under Sustaining Progress, a review of the Employment Agency Act 1971 is being carried out by my Department.

As part of this review, my Department published in May 2004, a discussion paper on the 1971 Act and requested submissions from the various interests in the sector, including the social partners. A total of nine submissions were received and were examined in detail by my Department.

My Department is currently finalising a policy paper which, following consultation with the Office of the Attorney General on some of the details, will be circulated to the various interests for further comment in the coming weeks. In this context, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions will be requested to submit any views that it may have on this policy paper. Following this second round of consultations, my Department will draft the heads of a Bill and seek Government approval to have a Bill drafted by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel to the Government. I hope to publish the Bill by the end of this year.

As part of this review, I am currently considering that in future: employment agencies will be required to be registered with my Department rather than be licensed as at present; overseas agencies supplying workers to work in Ireland will also be required to be registered with the Department; employment agencies will be required to comply with the terms of a statutory code of practice, which will set out in detail the practices and standards which agencies would be expected to follow, this code will in particular, set out the employment rights of agency workers; a statutory monitoring and advisory committee, representative of all the various interests in the sector, will be established, this committee will oversee the statutory code of practice and make recommendations to me as the Minister of State with responsibility for labour affairs revoking or suspending registration and-or the prosecution of agencies which breach the code; and any employer who recruits a worker from an unregistered agency, either from Ireland or overseas, will be guilty of an offence and liable to prosecution.