Nearly 1,000 work permits have been issued to Gama Construction since January last year despite a ban on the issuing of such permits for building workers.
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment yesterday refused to discuss whether special arrangements were put in place for the Turkish construction company, which is accused of exploiting workers.
Building workers have been ineligible for work permits since April 2003 under a policy introduced at that time by then minister for enterprise Mary Harney.
They were among the categories of workers excluded from the permit scheme because it was considered that sufficient labour was available from within the European Economic Area (EEA).
The EEA comprises the EU states as well as Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland. Citizens from those countries do not require work permits.
The list of excluded categories of worker is amended from time to time, but building workers continue to be ineligible under the scheme.
Despite this, Gama Construction was issued with 812 new work permits in 2004 and 77 this year before the issuing of permits to the company was suspended in March by Minister for Enterprise Micheál Martin.
Asked about the matter earlier this week, a department spokeswoman said Gama had been facilitated under a scheme whereby teams of employees could be brought to Ireland to work on major infrastructural projects for a specified period of time.
The Irish Times has been unable to find any reference to such a scheme in the department's work permits literature.
A construction industry source said yesterday he was not aware of any such scheme being operated by any other company.
The department's website says work permits will be issued "under no circumstances" for categories on the ineligible list, which includes building workers.
Gama Construction workers would also appear to be ineligible for permits under another provision of the work permits scheme. This requires that any employer seeking work permits must have a base in Ireland.
Gama Construction has confirmed to The Irish Times that all of its workers are directly employed by Gama's operation in Turkey. They are "seconded" to Gama Construction Ireland, said a spokeswoman, but are not employed by that company.
Clarification of these issues was sought from the department yesterday. It e-mailed the following statement in response:
"The High Court hearing on the injunction preventing publication of the labour inspectors' reports on the Gama case will be heard on Monday next, April 18th. Any comment on any issue pertaining to the content of the report or the hearing could be prejudicial. Therefore, the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment will not be making any further comment until the outcome of the hearing is known."
Calls to press officers for the department on this statement were not returned.
Gama has been at the centre of controversy since February when Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins accused it of making employees work "grotesque" hours for between €2 and €3 an hour.
The department's labour inspectors have since completed an investigation, but the company secured a temporary High Court injunction preventing publication of their report.
Gama began operating in Ireland in 2000 and has been involved in major construction projects, including the Huntstown and Tynagh power stations, Ennis and Ballincollig bypasses, and local authority housing developments. The majority of its 1,000-plus workers in Ireland are from Turkey.
Ms Harney yesterday again rejected claims that she had failed to protect the workers. Mr Martin, who succeeded her as Minister for Enterprise last year, said the Tánaiste had done everything she could, given the information available to her at the time.
