Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 18 October 2017
205. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the actions taken and progress made on each of the 14 recommendations in the study on the prevalence of zero hour contracts since the publication of this report, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [44161/17]
View answerI would point out that the Deputy is referring to a report which was commissioned by the previous Government.
In May of this year the Government approved the drafting of legislation to address the commitment in the current Programme for Government to address problems caused by the increased casualisation of work and to strengthen the regulation of precarious work.
The proposed legislation aims to address a number of issues which have been identified as being areas where current employment rights legislation can be strengthened without imposing unnecessarily onerous burdens on employers and businesses. The draft Bill has a particular focus on low-paid, more vulnerable workers. It provides for five key issues:
- Ensuring that employees are better informed about the nature of their employment arrangements and in particular their core terms at an early stage of their employment.
- Strengthening the provisions around minimum payments to low-paid, vulnerable workers who may be called in to work for a period but not provided with that work.
- Prohibiting zero hours contracts in most circumstances.
- Ensuring that workers on low hour contracts who consistently work more hours each week than provided for in their contracts of employment, are entitled to be placed in a band of hours that better reflects the reality of the hours they have worked over an extended period.
- Strengthening the anti-victimisation provisions for employees who try to invoke a right under these proposals.
The draft legislation takes account of the University of Limerick (UL) study on zero hour contracts and low hour contracts and the extensive material and practical examples provided by respondents to the public consultation on the UL study, conducted by the former Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. Furthermore, the draft legislation has also been subject to a detailed dialogue process with ICTU and Ibec over a period of several months.
The Bill is currently being drafted and it is my intention to publish the Bill before the end of the year subject to Government approval.
