Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 15 June 2016
46. Deputy James Browne asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation his plans and timeframe for bringing forward legislation to address the issue of zero-hour contracts; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15869/16]
View answer47. Deputy Ruth Coppinger asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he will bring forward legislation to outlaw zero-hours contracts; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15836/16]
View answerI ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her plans and timeframe for bringing forward legislation to address the issue of zero-hour contracts and if she would make a statement on the matter.
I thank Deputy Browne for his question. Deputy Coppinger has a similar question but she is not here. I propose to take Questions Nos. 46 and 47 together in any event.
I am committed to considering the appropriate policy response to the report of the University of Limerick of their study of zero-hour contracts and low-hour contracts. As Deputies will be aware, the University of Limerick was appointed in February 2015 to study the prevalence of zero-hour contracts and low-hour contracts and their impact on employees. The study, published in November 2015, found that zero-hour contracts, as defined within current Irish employment rights legislation, are not exclusively or extensively used in Ireland. It found low working hours can arise in different forms in employment contracts. There are regular part-time contracts with fixed hours, contracts with if-and-when hours only and hybrids of the two. If-and-when contracts are contracts where workers are not contractually required to make themselves available for work.
The UL report made a range of recommendations relating to contracts, hours of work and notice, minimum hours, how contracted hours should be determined, collective agreements, data gathering and wider contextual issues. It is important to point out that the UL study was an independent study and that the conclusions drawn and the recommendations made in it are those of UL. Therefore, it was essential to seek the views of stakeholders. To this end, my Department sought submissions from interested parties by way of public consultation. A large number of submissions were received in response to the consultation. The responses contained a variety of views both for and against the findings and recommendations as made by UL. These responses require, and are currently being given, careful consideration by my Department. The study and the responses to it will be considered by Government with a view to agreeing the actions that should be taken.
While I accept zero-hour contracts and similar if-and-when contracts are not very prominent in our society, they do affect primarily people in the most vulnerable positions. Job insecurity and the casualisation of the workforce is something we see growing and that is why this matter has come to a head in the last few years. Bringing clarity to work hours is essential to creating decent jobs, in particular for those people who are in the most vulnerable sections of our society. Where I come from, in the south east, in Wexford in particular, a high proportion of people rely on these jobs. A recent report only last week highlighted the fact that Wexford and the south east in particular has 7,000 fewer third-level education positions and 6,000 fewer IDA jobs in proportion to its population when compared to the rest of the country. I ask the Ministers to bring in a task force or to do something urgent to address those issues.
I will take note of the Deputy's concerns, which the Minister, Deputy Mitchell O'Connor, and I will try to rectify. We must examine the report, why it was commissioned and the recommendations in it. As the Deputy pointed out, while zero hours contracts are not often used in industry, the "if and when" approach is used, whereby people are not contracted to make themselves available. Outside of these, there is a lack of clarity regarding the employment status of many people who want to work, particularly in the hours the Deputy mentioned. As I previously said, we are concerned about the unpredictability of the hours and the difficulty of managing family life for people who have this type of uncertain employment, and the unstable income, which I mentioned earlier, which means people cannot get access to finance. A consultation process is in place. It finishes on Friday. We will take note of all the submissions, meet some of the interested parties, if necessary, and make our report.
