Mattie McGrath on work-permit delays and hospitality crisis

I too am pleased to be able to contribute to this debate here this evening, because we have a huge issue and we're known as the Island of the Thousand Welcomes, the Cade Mila Falta, indeed we just welcomed some physicists from the Gambian Parliament here a few minutes ago, but we have a huge problem with delays in employment problems, for various, I don't know, I don't understand the reasons, we never get the reasons, and some people, I have one in particular who has worked here, who has a partner here and wants to come into work and it's going on for nearly four years and that partner is a very brilliant, hard working, dedicated man himself and he's come to the conclusion now that he's going to try and reverse and go the other way, so he's involved in a skilled HGV driver who works 19, 20 hours a day in the mid-season, and it would be a huge loss to his employer, to his community and above all to his very elderly mother and his family and his friends, it's a huge change for himself to move so far away from his native shore. That being said, look, we have a situation, Dennis, it's the hospitality industry, and I've come from a committee where we're discussing that today as well, and I have no time at all, I want to condemn out of hand any practices where, you know, workers that come in here are working extortionate hours and are not getting the proper rates of pain, I don't think there's any trouble for that. We have to have checks and balances, yes, but the hospitality industry is on its knees, they tell us we're at full employment, I don't believe we are, but that's what our statistics, we've got to get out to us every day, and it's difficult to know, but that industry, and they've been lobbying, you, Minister, they've been lobbying us, and I have Chris as a mayor of a former colleague of yours for becoming a lobbyist, certainly I do agree that there should be some distance from members of this house, and I think the public service, county councillors or whatever, or senior officials, when they leave, there should be a public space, their time before they go into any lobbying position, but the hospitality industry, everyone knows about that, but we must also deal with the extortionate rates that they are charging here in Dublin, because it's damaging the brand, it's damaging our island of the thousand welcomes, it's damaging the work of Fanta Ireland and all the good people in tourism throughout Ireland, and my good colleague here led me, I suppose he won't be happy with me, but there's one or two, I believe, in Kerry as well, that have huge rates, and it's given a bad name to the whole brand, so, in New York they had a special rate for the hotels in New York, and different from the rest of the country, I believe we're going to have to do the same here, but back to the issue at hand, the farm contractors and forestry contractors of Ireland are crying out for labour as well, as is the building industry, as in many federal industries, the horticulture, and indeed the poultry and pig sector, all those sectors, and it's so difficult, so adverse for permits to be got, and the vast majority of employers are good, and caring, and responsible, and respect the workers, and while there's maybe always one or two, that happens every walk of life, unfortunately, but we must do something to bring it forward easier, I'm not saying then that we have no checks and balances, that we let anybody, everybody in here, no we don't, that's something I have a concern about with the influx of people, and we saw the saga in Calamity, and I'm glad that that's reversed for the moment, and I had one of them on this morning, one of the Ukrainians, a lady delighted that she wasn't moving that distance, but didn't know where she was sleeping tonight, where they were going to be, but that will resolve herself, I hope, and apparently it's because one of the companies in, in, in, in, in, in, in, may want to take the international refugees, or where they take Ukrainians, and so are we picking and choosing? I was contacted during the week by a gentleman who says he's three and a half thousand places for Ukrainian people to come here, that are fleeing to war, and he's in a logjam, I was contacted by one of his people in, that was in that chain of surprise that he had, and I can give you details, on a corridor in Tipperary Town, a gentleman, I won't name him, and he has his hotel, he has his premises kitted out, with a fair amount of expense, and ready, and waiting, and not a dicky board, not a thing in the morning, not a penny, so he entered in good faith to deal with this situation that the government have asked, and did up his premises, and he hasn't seen anybody to come, and has no idea, so I'm alarmed to think that a company, or a man, or a gentleman, or whatever, I didn't get speaking to him, because of my office, that he's three and a half thousand places, in the middle of a housing crisis of so many people, so I don't know what's going on, I genuinely don't know what's going on, I'm bewildered to wonder how this is happening, but I do think that if that man is a kind of a coordinator, or whatever we call him, that he can pick up those kind of places, how come your Minister for Housing, and yourself from that section, well, can't get your hands on these places, there's something wrong, is the money so lucrative for the other, or is it quite out of question, there's questions, I have question marks, so we need to deal with it, but we also need to be sensitive, and we need to understand that contracting people haven't, the contractors are in a bad way for staff, and many contractors have been forced out of business, this particular year, I know I have done them myself, in my own South Tiberi, because of the price, the cost of fuel, and the cost of insurance, and the lack of any support, and you have for some reason, the Minister refused to meet farm contractors of Ireland, and my time is up, so look, I'm appealing to you to be more understanding and sensitive, or matters.