Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Question 33: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the plans he has to ratify the 1990 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Families; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31644/06]

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 179: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment when the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families will be ratified; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32383/06]

Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 33 and 179 together.

Ireland is not a party to the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1990. Nor has Ireland ratified this Convention. No other Member States of the European Union have signed or ratified this Convention either.

This Convention is a complex cross-cutting one, which has been examined by several Government Departments. I understand that before Ireland could consider ratifying it there would need to be significant changes across a wide range of existing legislation, including employment, social welfare, education, taxation and electoral law.

Many of the issues addressed by the Convention would have a European Union dimension and this would also complicate any proposed ratification by Ireland of it, if our European partners were to continue to refrain from ratification, as they seem likely to do. In this context there are no plans to ratify this Convention.

But this does not signify that I am not committed to many of the ideals and aspirations which the Convention tried to further. In particular, I am fully committed to the prevention of exploitation of migrant workers and to ensuring that all workers benefit from the full range of our employment rights protections.

In this respect I would point out that this range of protections has been added to by the Employment Permits Act 2006, which was signed by the President on 23rd June 2006. It provides a number of new important protections for migrant workers including:

the granting of the employment permit to the employee, rather than the employer

the employment permit containing a statement of the rights and entitlements of the migrant worker, including that the employee may change employment through the application for another permit by a new employer.

I would also emphasise that the new Social Partnership agreement "Towards 2016" contains a new employment rights compliance package for all workers, which includes new legislation as well as the establishment of a new Office for Employment Rights Compliance.