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Articles 20 and 21 of the Convention. Reporting obligations of the central labour inspection authority. The Committee notes the concise statistical tables sent by the Government with its report on Convention No. 129, concerning inspection activities undertaken by the inspectorate in 2005 with regard to monitoring legislation concerning wages. These tables refer to the number of inspections carried out, the number of infringements recorded and also the number of cases dealt with in each branch of activity (Article 21(d) and (e)), without mentioning the number of workplaces liable to inspection or the number of workers covered (Article 21(c)), so that it is impossible to evaluate the overall level of coverage by the labour inspectorate with regard to needs. While welcoming the availability of such data, the Committee reminds the Government of the central labour inspectorate’s obligation to publish and send an annual report on inspection activities containing the information required by Article 21(a)–(g). It would like to draw the Government’s attention to the usefulness of such report for evaluating at both national and international level the operation of the labour inspection system and the improvement thereof with a view to the optimum coverage of needs. Valuable guidance on the presentation and level of detail of the information which the annual report should contain on the subjects covered by Article 21(a)–(g) of the Convention is provided by Part IV of Recommendation No. 81. The Committee hopes that the Government will take measures as soon as possible to ensure that an annual report on labour inspection activities containing all the required information will soon be published and that a copy will be transmitted by the central inspection authority to the ILO according to the procedures laid down in Article 20. The Committee would be grateful if the Government would keep the Office informed of all progress made in this respect and send a copy of any relevant legal text and also any statistical information available on each of the subjects covered by Article 21.

Article 5(a). Labour inspection, child labour and inter-institutional cooperation. Also referring to the information contained in the Government’s report on the Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138), received by the ILO in 2002, with regard to inspection activities undertaken by the Employment and Training Corporation to monitor the application of legislation on child labour between May 2000 and May 2002, the Committee notes with interest that these activities resulted in 130 infringements with regard to minimum age being reported to the Education Department. It would be grateful if the Government would indicate whether such activities have continued beyond the period mentioned, send information on their scope and results and describe the mechanisms for cooperation established between the labour inspectorate and the Education Department. It also asks it to indicate the follow-up action taken regarding, firstly, any legal proceedings taken against offending employers and, secondly, the situation of the children concerned.