The number of workplace visits by labour inspectors fell sharply for four months this year while a new computer system was being installed.
All 17 inspectors, whose job is to ensure employers meet minimum wage and other obligations, were confined to the office for most of the time the system was being set up.
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment said it was necessary to have all the inspectors present while the "complex" system was being installed and tested. It also denied yesterday that its annual inspection figures provided an exaggerated picture of its labour inspectorate's work.
The Irish Times has established that calls by inspectors to premises which had nobody present, or simply to distribute leaflets about the minimum wage, were included in the 8,500 "inspections" recorded last year.
A source within the Department told The Irish Times that labour inspectors were effectively idle from the beginning of February until last week, when installation of the computer system was completed.
This was firmly denied by Mr Eddie Nolan, manager of the inspectorate, who acknowledged that inspectors were "in house" while the new system, which cost €900,000, was being commissioned and put in place.
"The reason for that was two-fold. The inspectors needed to become familiar with the system and we needed to make sure that it could do everything we wanted it to do."
Inspections did not stop entirely during the four months in question, he added. However, the figures for February to May show a dramatic drop in inspections compared with the same months in 2002. In February, there were 305 inspections (down 161), in March 105 (down 720), in April 35 (down 434) and May 121 (down 521).
The number of inspections does not necessarily reflect the number of site visits. An inspector might, for example, examine whether an employer was in breach of minimum wage, public holiday and unsocial hours obligations. This would be recorded as three separate investigations.
Month-by-month figures for last year show a dramatic rise in the number of inspections that took place in November, more than twice the number in the next highest month.
Mr Nolan said this was due to a particular initiative to do with the minimum wage, which focused on those in the "sub-minimum wage" category.
He "fully accepted" that at least some of the 2,025 investigations recorded for that month comprised nothing more than inspectors giving a leaflet to an employer and moving on.
The new computer system, he said, would enable the Department to show a more detailed breakdown of the type of visits taking place, and would record calls, interviews and investigations as three separate activities.
