I move amendment No. 26:
In page 17, subsection (1), lines 33 to 37, to delete paragraph (a).
I want the Minister's opinion on this section. It seems to me that it is rather vague. What is his opinion about a substantial loss of employment?
SECTION 19.
Amendment No. 25 not moved.
This is the issue of substantial loss of employment. This has had an effect, which was not intended, on certain kinds of employment. We are providing for the power to bring in regulations to cover people in such casual employment. One of the qualifying conditions for entitlement to unemployment benefit is that the person must have sustained a substantial loss of employment in any period of six consecutive days. Section 1 provides that people engaged in casual employment as distinct from regular part-time work will be exempt from this condition. The term "casual employment" will be defined in regulations. A person who qualified for unemployment benefit is entitled to a benefit of 390 days, that is 15 months in any continuous period in which the person is unemployed or incapable of work because of illness.
In determining the duration of entitlement, any two separate claims for unemployment benefit are linked if they are within the same period of interruption of employment, irrespective of the period between the claims. Subsection (1) provides that claims for unemployment benefit will only link where they are not separated by more than two years in any one continuous period of interruption of employment. A similar provision already applies in the case of disability benefit. Section 2 (2) provides that this section will be brought into effect by way of a commencement order. We brought part-time workers into benefits for pensions and disability benefit and in doing that arrangements had to be made to relate to the part-time working situation. In those provisions some casual workers who do casual work on a regular basis were available for work the rest of the time but there was no work for them. That arose in the case of dockers, for instance and it was found to lean particularly heavily on their situation.
There are some other categories of casual workers and what we want to do here is to enable ourselves to make regulations to deal with that situation. It is not so easy to deal with and we will have to design regulations to meet just categories where they are not opting for continuous part-time work, as distinct from a situation where someone is available for work continuously and not able to get the work and then being affected by the clause.
I welcome the Minister's explanation because he will remember I raised this point on Second Stage and many other occasions. The basic problem with casual, part-time and short-time work is that many of the regulations already introduced tried to deal with all these categories because the Department or the Minister of the day was trying to regulate casual working in relation to a specific set of circumstances — such as share fishermen, dockers or other older-types of employment — where casual work was the order of the day depending on the season, weather, etc. Unfortunately, we have now come to an era of almost full-time casual workers. I am sure the Minister will see on the records of his own Department that the amount of casual workers in the country has increased substantially to the stage where it is now a worrying development. Even employers in large retail companies in my own constituency are employing young people, particularly young women, for three days a week when trading is good. However, when trading is not good in January or February they are thrown out. That is happening across the board, particularly in the employment of young people. The banks employ people on casual, part-time and short-time work.
The definitions of "casual" and "part-time" need to be looked at carefully before any ministerial orders are issued. While one gap may be closed to deal with abuse, ten times as many problems are created for other casual, part-time or short-time workers. I know it is not the responsibility of the Minister's Department but the Minister for Labour will have to look at the whole question of young workers under the system. As I said on Second Stage, we used social welfare payments many years ago to try to keep people in seasonal employment. The work was shared keeping the same amount of people in employment and dividing the spoils. That happened in textiles, footwear and clothing. However, there was no such thing as that kind of work in firms now operating it. Multibillion pound operations are now employing casual workers and even the largest banks employ people for three days a week. I do not know where this development is going but it is worrying. When the Minister is issuing regulations under this section he should ensure that innocent people are not caught in the net.
The purpose of this amendment is to give us the power to make such regulations and look at their operation. We are well ahead of Europe in relation to part-time workers and that is partly the problem. We have provided pensions for part-time workers, I was concerned that such workers should have pension and sickness cover but when you mesh that with the rest of the social insurance system you get into all sorts of complexities which we will have to work on to get them right. While I understand what Deputies are saying, the effect of the amendment would be to take that power away from me and that is why I suggest to the Deputy that she would not prss it.
I will not press it but I have a problem in agreeing to something on foot of regulations which have yet to be defined. I will not rehearse all the arguments the Minister has already heard about regulation. I do not have any problem with what the Minister is trying to do but the problem I am referring to is that the paragraph is very vague. How do you define substantial loss of employment? Is it possible, in fact, to legally define it? I do not know if it is but I would like to have had that question answered. Is the Minister's substitute paragraph tenable?
I support the points made by my colleague Deputy Bell. It is one of the most anonymous regulations that has been put in place in the past year. Apart from the confusion over the classification of whether a worker is casual, part-time or short-time, many nurses in Westmeath have suffered severely because of this restriction. I agree with Deputy Keogh who asked about "a substantial loss of employment". Hospital personnel often have to work a 24-hour shift one week and a 15 to 17-hour shift the following week. That is the case with St. Loman's psychiatric hospital, Mullingar, St. Perter's, Castlepollard, and St. Mary's geriatric hospital. People in the nursing sector lose out on their unemployment benefit every time which is extremely harsh. The Minister should ensure that people who find themselves in this situation, through no fault of their own, are not excluded from applying for unemployment benefit when the regulations are made. That is why I said earlier that we are eager to see the regulations. I agree that in a situation like this the Minister should have the opportunity of spelling out the various classes involved. I make a special plea for nurses excluded under the 1993 regulations. It is something that comes to my notice on an ongoing basis. Night nurses and others who render important services to the community were excluded.
The purpose of this amendment is to enable me to bring some people in. Deputy Keogh asked how tenable it is and how you would work it out. I need this power if I am even to try to work it out. If I do not have it you can forget it until next year's Social Welfare Bill. If I do not have the power I cannot even begin to try to work out who we can bring back in and whom it would be appropriate to bring back in. That is what this does, it is an enabling power to do that. The regulations are designed to bring people in, not to exclude them. At the moment, however, everybody is excluded.
I accept what the Minister is trying to do but I am afraid this will not work and I want an assurance. I take the point about enabling legislation but the Minister still did not answer the question about "a substantial loss of employment", how it will be defined and if it is possible to do so. The Minister should be able to reassure us on that point.
We are not changing that element, it is already in the Act. All we are doing in the amendment is giving power to deal with cases where people are engaged in casual employment and to have special arrangements in their cases. However, the substantial loss of employment is there at present. When I was appointed Minister I changed the interpretation so that the loss of one day could be regarded as a substantial loss of employment. A "substantial loss of employment" was previously defined as up to three days. I can do no more unless I make the change I am now proposing. With that proposed change I can go further and we can evaluate the situation then. Certain categories of workers will be covered. Whatever we do may be subject to challenge but we will do it with the intention of including people fully in the system. The effect of the proposed amendment would deny me the opportunity to do that.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Section agreed to.