Minister vows to legislate slave loopholes

A GOVERNMENT minister has pledged to plug any legislative gaps to protect workers following concerns raised after the discovery of an alleged slave camp in Britain.

The Migrants Rights Centre of Ireland (MRCI) claimed its workers had uncovered some 150 cases of forced labour in recent years, but officials were constrained in intervening due to a lack of legislation over prosecuting abusers.

Jan O'Sullivan, the junior minister with responsibility for trade and development, said she was surprised to hear that cases of forced labour were being perpetrated in Ireland. Launching an Africa-Ireland economic forum in Dublin, she vowed to address concerns that laws were insufficient to punish offenders abusing workers.

“I am... shocked to hear that there are potential cases in Ireland. I’ve no doubt that the Government will do everything it possibly can including, if necessary, legislation in order to address this issue.

“Because nobody in Ireland, particularly Government representatives, wants to... allow a situation where action cannot be taken if people are being kept in this kind of way.

“There’s absolutely no place in modern Ireland for such activities. And if there are legislative problems, I believe the Government will address it.”

The MRCI said it regularly discovered cases of people working as forced labour but was powerless to intervene because of a lack of legislation to protect workers or bring prosecutions.

It wants the introduction of legislation similar to Britain’s Slavery and Servitude Act, which enabled British police to act on long-held suspicions of slavery at a Traveller camp in Bedfordshire.

The MRCI said that the withholding of passports and other legal documents in Ireland, threats of deportation, and intimidation of workers’ family members in their country of origin were all common methods of forcing people to stay with abusive employers.