I will start by saying we need non-EU workers. We need non-EU workers with permits. The economy needs that. That often gets lost in the immigration debate. However an issue has arisen in terms of how permitted workers are paid. At the moment, in a food processing plant, for example, there will be non-EU permitted workers working alongside EU workers and Irish workers. They are currently paid the same for doing the same job. However, under a recent legislative change it has emerged that non-EU permitted worker will get on average €2 extra an hour for doing exactly the same work. For example an EU or Irish worker might get €13 an hour and for the non-EU permitted worker that will increase to €15 an hour. You can see the problem straight away. It will cause tension within the workplace and will raise issues around inequalities, leading to things such as xenophobia and probably racial tensions too. We need to sort that out straight away. There is also the added impact to the costs of business. Businesses struggling with the costs of business has been well covered. I am asking for a pause on this legislation to allow it to equalise and level out.

I thank Deputy O'Sullivan for raising this matter. I will have to ask the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, who has responsibility for work permits to come back to me and to the Deputy on this.

More broadly, this is a Government that wants to provide certainty to small and medium businesses on costs and to look to see how we can support small and medium businesses with the increased costs they have been encountering. It is our intention to try to bring forward some measures to assist with that in the next few weeks. I will look into this specific issue.