I am sure the Taoiseach will join me in deploring the circumstances in which 13 Latvian workers were abandoned on a small island off the coast of Skerries. This is part of a pattern. It is the latest, but most extreme example of the casual regular everyday exploitation of immigrant workers, in particular poorly paid workers.

The case history is well established. In the case of Gama, it was due to official policy — sponsored invitation from the Minister of the day to that company. The Taoiseach has made his views known in the House on the case of Irish Ferries, where Irish workers were displaced by cheap labour, but I am not sure he has managed to do anything about it. There is a dispute ongoing in Doyle Concrete, in Rathangan, in the constituency of my colleague, Deputy Wall, where workers have been disemployed to allow for the employment of cheap labour. We have had some horrific cases of abuse of migrant workers in domestic service, who are excluded from the terms of the Employment Equality Act. Domestic service was not a phenomenon at the time it was enacted.

One of the latest cases I know of from the rights commissioner is that two workers employed for only three weeks were found to have been cheated out of €7,000. It is unclear whether the money will be paid to the people in question on foot of the rights commissioner's findings. In another case, a person who worked on a mushroom farm for 12 hours a day, seven days a week, was paid half the minimum wage rate. Such cases are part of a pattern.

The number of inspections carried out by the labour inspectorate decreased from 8,373 in 2002 to 5,160 last year. Four new inspectors have been appointed to the labour inspectorate, bringing the total number of inspectors from sixteen and a half to twenty and a half. There is less than one inspector for every 100,000 workers. There is less than one per county. Every county has a dog warden, but not every county has a labour inspector. The number of labour inspectors is inadequate to force compliance with employment legislation and to tackle the phenomenon I have mentioned.

I join Deputy Rabbitte in condemning the actions of an employer of some sort, who abandoned a group of Latvians on an island off Skerries at the weekend. The status of the employer in question is not quite clear from the reports I have been given, although I have received a name. The people in question were abandoned off Shenick's Island, which is half a mile from the coast of County Dublin. They would have had to stay on the island overnight if it were not for the assistance of the Skerries lifeboat and the marine co-ordination centre. I have received a report outlining the details of what happened in this case, but it will probably be tomorrow before more detailed reports are available to me. A number of parties, including the Garda Síochána, the Health and Safety Authority, the marine inspectorate and the labour inspectorate, have started to investigate the incident over the past day or two. One of the issues being examined is whether the employer in question had a licence to engage in activity of this nature. If he was involved in some formal way in the production for sale of periwinkles, which I presume he was, he was subject to many Acts and may well have been in breach of them. Such matters are being followed up and examined by the various relevant authorities.

I am keeping in close touch with developments in respect of Irish Ferries. The latest position is that the unions met yesterday and it is expected that the court will issue its determination shortly. Both sides restated their positions yesterday but did not engage in negotiations, unfortunately.

Deputy Rabbitte referred specifically to the labour inspectorate. The recently recruited cohort of inspectors will be allocated specifically to areas of employment dominated by migrant workers, such as cleaning, agriculture and services. The Government provided funding at the end of April to meet the cost of an additional ten labour inspectors and a supervisor, to be appointed to work mainly in that area. The interviews have been completed and some inspectors have been employed. When they are all in place, there will be a total of 31 labour inspectors. The Deputy was correct to state that fewer inspections have been conducted this year than last year. The decrease took place when a number of inspectors were taken from other work and asked to examine certain issues relating to Gama Construction. That was the right thing to do at the time.

Although most employers, including those who employ workers from the new EU member states, follow the rules and obey the laws, there are breaches. We have to use the additional inspectors being recruited to work on such cases. I hope that will be enough. Some 8,000 inspections were conducted each year under the old system. Extra work has had to be done on the detailed inspections. The Minister will keep the system under review. I deplore the breaches of the law to which I have referred.

I remind Deputy Rabbitte and certain people outside the House that the Government decided last year to allow people from the new EU member states to work in this country from 1 May 2004. That decision was taken to help the position of the Irish labour market and to deal with the fact that we had full employment, in effect. We were confident that laws were in place to ensure that such people were treated properly. It behoves everybody to obey the laws to which I refer. We have to come down extremely heavily on employers who are in breach of those laws. The Government is in the process of increasing the number of labour inspectors from 20 to 31. I hope that will make an impact. I will give Deputy Rabbitte the full details on this issue as soon as I have them, but it will probably be tomorrow.

Can we deal with the facts? The number of labour inspectors has not yet been increased from 20 to 31. A recent response to a parliamentary question made it clear that there were sixteen and a half inspectors. Just four of the ten new posts mentioned by the Taoiseach have been filled. Therefore, there are twenty and a half labour inspectors, in my language. We are not talking about the complement — we are talking about the number of labour inspectors actually in the service. I would like to comment on the report submitted by the labour inspectorate to the Government. According to The Irish Times of 8 April last:

Lack of staff, resources, training and legal support is hampering the pursuit of employers who exploit their workers, labour inspectors have told the Government. Confusing legislation, inadequate powers, ambiguous targets and a lack of clarity on their roles are also hindering their work, the inspectors say in a confidential document [submitted to the Government].

That is the actual position. We are facilitating the development of an underclass of cheap labour in this economy. We can see on our television screens the implications elsewhere in western Europe of alienating an underclass who are abused.

Hear, hear.

As far as I understand it, the extent of the abuse of the underclass in that country is not as bad as what is going on in this country.

Hear, hear.

Many people from other countries, who are working in domestic service, are prisoners in the homes of this country's nouveaux riches. They are being exploited and abused as they work for long hours to do the most menial of tasks for the poorest of pay. Such abuse is not confined to sections of the construction industry, Irish Ferries and Gama Construction. The Minister promised portable work permits, but the Bill that was brought to the House did not measure up to the Minister’s promises. The work permits that will be issued to people from other countries under the Bill will not be portable. The proposed legislation is an inadequate improvement on the existing position. Even if the 31 labour inspectors were in place — they are not in place — there would be little more than one inspector for every 100,000 workers. We need to take action if we do not want to build problems for ourselves. The casual replacement of workers taking place in Rathangan shows that the policy being pursued at Irish Ferries is catching on. It is possible to casually replace a number of indigenous or other workers with cheap labour. We need to address such matters now and to show the foresight that will help us to avoid the kind of problems being encountered in the suburbs of Paris and elsewhere.

Hear, hear.

If legislation is not in place to prevent or dissuade people from engaging in any kind of abuse in any area, we should strengthen the existing provisions. Most trade unions and employers have said that the current legislation is adequate in most areas.

For shame. What else does the Taoiseach expect the employers to say?

I do not know of any unions that hold that opinion.

On summary conviction, people engaging in such abuse can face a fine not exceeding €5,000 or imprisonment of up to six months, or both. In a case of conviction on indictment, people engaging in such abuse can face a fine not exceeding €100,000 or imprisonment of up to two years.

How many people have been convicted?

A host of tough provisions can be used if a person is proved to have been in breach of the law in the Skerries case. The penalties in place in other areas are also quite strong. If the law needs to be strengthened, I will not have any difficulty with doing so.

Yes, it needs to be strengthened.

Does the Taoiseach know that domestic service is exempt from the Employment Equality Acts?

I accept that point.

I ask Deputy Rabbitte to allow the Taoiseach to conclude without interruption.

I accept the Deputy's point about people working in the home. It is not covered by legislation, to the best of my knowledge.

The Taoiseach should look at the meat factories.

However, strong powers and laws exist both in regard to companies that are unionised and those which are not.

Deputy Rabbitte is correct. There are not 31 inspectors in place but 31 have been approved.

For shame.

I understand the reason they are not all in place is due to the difficulty in getting people to take up this kind of work. People have been interviewed for the jobs. Dealing with this end of the labour market is not seen as a very attractive profession even though the remuneration is quite good. We must deal with this issue. It is believed that we can tackle it when we have 31 inspectors. We will try to get them in place as soon as possible. I have been checking on the matter both this morning and yesterday since I saw the reports on this particular issue.

In some cases where there is a vacancy in a workplace an individual from Latvia, Lithuania or Poland is taken on. That is not a case of displacing an Irish worker. Where there is blatant displacement by an employer, it should be reported. We can examine those issues. We would take a very dim view of a campaign by some employers to improve their margins by getting rid of Irish workers and replacing them with workers on lower earnings. That is a different issue.

That is what is happening.

It is already happening.

If there is evidence of that, it should be reported.

It is going on wholesale. The Taoiseach knows that.

The Taoiseach's time is concluded.

It is going on in the meat industry and everywhere else.

This is not Deputy Joe Higgins's question.

The Taoiseach is aware——

I will have to ask Deputy Higgins to leave the House if he continues to interrupt.

It is a well known fact that it is nearly impossible to get an Irish person to work in the meat industry. Let us not start confusing the issue. If people are abusing the system or there are sectors we have not covered, I am in favour of doing whatever is necessary in that regard, but a host of legislative measures already exist. When I inquired today about the legislative measures in place to deal with this action over the weekend, I was informed that approximately 25 laws are in place to deal with the person concerned in the area of food, the marine, hygiene and safety. A host of legislation is in place. If issues are reported, there is a process for dealing with them in a range of areas. The particular individual in question is being investigated in five different areas.