THE SUPREME Court has unanimously ruled that a labour inspector’s report into the underpayment of Turkish workers by the Gama construction company may be supplied to State and other bodies with prosecutorial functions but cannot be published generally.
The decision quashes a High Court ruling the report could not be circulated beyond the office of the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
The five-judge Supreme Court found the report, prepared by an inspector appointed by the Minister, may be circulated to bodies including the Competition Authority, Director of Corporate Enforcement, Financial Regulator, Law Society, Departments of Finance and Transport, Garda fraud and immigration bureaus, Revenue, National Roads Authority, the joint body of local authorities and the Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority.
The decision was on an appeal by the Minister against a High Court decision in June 2005 by Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan quashing the report after finding the inspector acted outside his powers in dealing with the report. She directed the report not be circulated any further.
The case arose from the involvement since 2000 of Turkey-based Gama Endustari Tesisleri Imalat Montaj AS (Gama Turkey) and its wholly-owned Irish company, Gama Construction Ireland Ltd, in National Development Programme infrastructural works in Ireland. Gama employed 1,066 people here in 2003, and in 2005, when a dispute over wages broke out, it had 927 permits for workers from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
On February 8th, 2005, Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins made a statement in the Dáil that Gama “imports” workers from Turkey and paid about €2-€3 per hour in breach of the minimum wage law. He claimed the workers were required to work “grotesque” hours, were accommodated in company barracks and their situation was a modern version of bonded labour.
The Minister ordered its labour inspectorate to investigate the claims. There was initial co-operation by Gama Ireland’s managing director, Hakan Karaalioglu, who admitted errors in calculating payroll, which he said were rectified, and that the company had not kept working time records in accordance with law.
Gama Turkey later demanded an undertaking the inspector’s report would not be published. When that was not given, it took its successful High Court proceedings to stop publication.
Yesterday, giving the Supreme Court decision, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns said there were no powers of general publication of the report, and those entitled to have sight of it were confined to bodies with a prosecutorial function.