I previously raised here reports that workers on the Irish Ferries vessel running from Ireland to France are to be paid €4 per hour. It is not the only case of low pay that has been in the news in the past week. Last week, the Government was forced to concede in the High Court a case which has resulted in the striking down of the employment regulation order which sets the minimum wages and conditions for 25,000 workers in Irish hotels. This, in turn, has implications for approximately 250,000 people, most of them low-paid workers, working in various services who are covered by the joint labour committees.

We also know that over the past two years, there have been 296 detections of breaches of the minimum wage legislation. However, there has been only one prosecution. It appears that there has been an increase in the number of labour inspectors employed, which is welcome, but there has been a drop in the number of inspections carried out. There were 1,500 fewer inspections carried out last year, a drop of 9% on the number of labour inspections despite the increase in the number of inspectors. I understand that the number of inspectors who are employed in turn is now up to 50 but is significantly less than the 90 that was promised in the employment agreement.

Meanwhile, the Government is delaying bringing forward legislation to protect the rights of agency workers. An employment law compliance Bill was promised but has still not appeared. Ireland is one of three EU countries that continues to block the EU directive on temporary agency workers.

Will the Taoiseach tell us what the Government will do to protect the rights of workers, particularly low-paid workers, and to eradicate the continuing exploitation of low-paid workers in this well-off country with a prosperous economy? What investigation has been carried out into the reports of the payment of €4 per hour on the Irish Ferries vessel? What will the Government do to protect the pay and conditions of the 25,000 hotel workers who have now been exposed as a result of last week's High Court decision? When will the necessary legislation be brought before this House to provide adequate protection for workers on low pay?

This Government has done more than probably any government in Europe in respect of low pay. We were the first government in Europe to bring in a minimum wage. We have progressively improved that, in conjunction with the Labour Court, employers and workers. We have removed the workers from the tax net, which has had a significant effect.

In respect of the two issues mentioned by Deputy Gilmore, the National Employment Rights Authority legislation is on a non-statutory basis. The legislation is due before the House. Deputy Gilmore raised this during Question Time last week. I spoke to the Minister of State with responsibility for labour affairs. I understand that they had already commenced an investigation last Tuesday into the Irish Ferries case to see if it was factual, which would not surprise me, and, if so, what arrangements were to be used to pay those workers. That is under examination.

On the inspectorate, close to the full complement of 90 people are employed. The last figure I saw was 78 but I can confirm the number with the Deputy's office.

The rest of them are still in training.

We are anxious to progress the legislation. The Minister has completed two of the Bills. He has been in consultation with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. He wants to bring the legislation to fruition in a way that addresses aspects not in Towards 2016, but that arose subsequently. The Government supports the legislation.

I explained the issue of agency workers in detail to the House last week. The European directive creates its own problems in terms of our position, which is that our social partners must agree on these issues. Rather than just accepting the European position and putting that into Irish law, we have always taken the view that we must consult. Sometimes it suits employers that we do so and sometimes it suits the organised workers, but it is the same regardless of the issue and it would be wrong to move away from that position and adopt a directive without taking account of the normal arrangements we have for industrial relations. There is no difficulty in this regard. Both the Minister, Deputy Martin, and the Minister of State, Deputy Kelleher, have been engaging with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and they and their officials are anxious to continue to do so.

On the joint labour committees, JLCs, as the Deputy is aware, an injunction was granted last week. That case was taken by the employers' side. The immediate effect of the injunction granted is to prevent increases in the minimum rates of pay for workers in the hotel sector, which were due to come into effect on 16 November last. As employment regulation orders, EROs, generally address the conditions of low pay workers, the pay increases at issue are quite modest; they are less than €8.50 per week. The Irish Hotels Federation action appears to be driven by a determination in principle not to pay more than the statutory minimum wage. It is the opposite to the Irish Ferries case the Deputy raised where they were paying less than the minimum wage. This issue was an argument to tie the JLC to the minimum wage.

There is a commitment in Towards 2016, which the Minister, Deputy Martin, pointed out in recent days, to modernise the operations of the JLC system. That is ongoing under the Labour Court but the exercise was not intended to consider the legislative aspects of the system. It was appropriate to take the legal decision we took last week but we are now faced with having to resolve the legislation for the JLC system generally.

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply, which covered a lot of ground. I acknowledge that consultation is required in respect of a number of these matters but, as the Taoiseach will have seen, some of the social partners have indicated over the course of the past week that the lack of action by Government on the matters I have raised this morning could cause them to hold back from entering into new social partnership talks.

The difficulty with the minimum wage is the fact that it is not being enforced. I have drawn attention to the fact that 296 cases have been detected but only one prosecution has been brought. First, why is that the case? Second, can the Taoiseach tell me the reason the number of inspections have dropped even though the number of inspectors has increased?

Third, on the hotel workers issue, which is the most immediate one dealt with over the course of the past week, what is the position now with regard to the hotel workers? Is it intended that a new employment regulation order will be made for hotel workers or is the Taoiseach accepting that their pay will be pinned to the minimum wage? I remind him that in the case of hotel workers in many instances we are talking about people like waiters, bar staff and other skilled people working in the hotel industry whose wages were traditionally set by the joint labour committees and were not pinned to the minimum wage.

Did I understand from the end of the Taoiseach's reply that it is intended to introduce new legislation to strengthen the joint labour committee system and provide protection not only for the 25,000 hotel workers, but for the other 250,000 largely low paid workers who are covered by the JLC arrangement?

To answer the last question, we are examining last weekend's decision. The Government has to take its own action because the whole system of the JLCs, which are statutory bodies, as Deputy Gilmore and I fully understand, was established under the Industrial Relations Act and their role has always been to fix the minimum rates of pay and the regulation of employments. The system was undermined by this decision. We already had a commitment in Towards 2016 to modernise the operation of the joint labour committees and that is ongoing under the auspices of the Labour Court. This case was not foreseen but it was not intended to consider the legislative aspects of the system. We must examine that now because similar actions could be taken in other areas.

I was surprised by the action of the Irish Hotels Federation in this area but that is its entitlement. We must now examine the system. This system has worked well. It was set up in under a clause in the 1946 Act and it regulated these sectors fairly well for many years. We are considering the implications but the legal position must be examined because JLCs are statutory bodies under the 1946 Act and if they are struck down we must examine that.

On the other issue, the Minister, Deputy Martin, and I accept the point that we must try to finalise these legislative matters and that is what the Government wants to do. Last autumn, we approved the drafting of the employment law compliance Bill to give effect to the relevant provisions of Towards 2016. That included the appointment on a statutory basis of the director of the National Employment Rights Authority, NERA, which has now been working for 12 months on an interim basis, to secure better compliance with employment law through information and enforcement activities. It is supported by 90 labour inspectorates, an increase of 59 over the number a year ago, and the appointment of a statutory tripartite advisory body to advise the director on those activities.

The social partners were invited to nominate members of the interim advisory board. The Bill will extend the remit of NERA inspection services to include enforcement of the Employment Permits Acts of recent years. Drafting of the Bill, which involves the amendment of over 30 enactments, is proceeding and it is hoped the Bill will be published this month.

The regionalisation of the NERA inspection services is also progressing. It is now headquartered in Carlow but it has offices in Dublin, Cork and Shannon and premises in Sligo, which will be operational in about a month. The Department of Finance sanctioned 59 labour inspectorate posts. All the positions have been filled following a recruitment campaign. An additional 47 inspectors have been appointed and the remaining 12 will take up their positions shortly.

Regarding the labour inspectors, the Deputy's point about the action and the cases in the courts, the labour inspectorate, or NERA, as it is now called, has dealt with 14,200 calls and inspections. I understand the reason there are not prosecutions in most cases is because the companies pay the arrears as a result of the inspection and correct the procedures. The inspectors do not then proceed on actions but they call back. It is to try to clean up arrangements. The inspectors are active and are coming down hard on those who do not pay the minimum wage. They are watching the rights of the new Irish, the foreign workers, and they are examining the area of permits. They are dealing with any cases brought to the attention of NERA by organised workers or the public.