Workers exploited on State projects

Two events coincided yesterday to show that this society is made up of a series of parallel universes and that each is shaped by utterly different expectations.

While staff at subsidy-dependent Iarnród Éireann demanded pay rises of up to 25%, a High Court judge ruled that 27 Portugese workers who worked here on a road- building project were exploited in the most grievous way.

Mr Justice David Keane ruled the workers are entitled to damages of about €1.5m plus interest. The judge ruled that the defendants were not entitled to deduct €520 from wages each month for accommodation in a prefab, without drinking water, on a slip road on the N7 Nenagh-Limerick road project.