asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will cause inquiries to be made to find the number of dockers, carters, seamen and port workers who do not benefit in respect of holidays by the Conditions of Employment Act, because of "broken time"; and if he will provide for their inclusion in future legislation.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Dockers and Conditions of Employment Act.
Mr. Byrne
Seamen are excluded from the provisions of the Holidays (Employees) Act, 1939. With regard to the other classes of workers referred to in the question, I gave full explanations in reply to questions put to me on the 20th May and the 3rd February last. On those occasions I invited the Deputies who put in the questions to make some practical suggestion as to how the difficulties of the position might be met, but no such suggestion has yet reached me. Every effort has been made in conference with representatives of employers and workers to find a solution of the difficulty, but no practical proposal has yet emerged.
Mr. Byrne
Is the Minister aware that I accepted his invitation and put up a suggestion to his Department, but got no reply? That is the reason why I have put the question down here. I suggested that men who were working broken time—six months with one company and six months with another— should get part-time holidays from each company.
The only letter I received from the Deputy on the subject was one in which he said that he was not in a position to put forward any practical suggestion.
Mr. Byrne
That is a practical suggestion—that, when men work six months with the B. & I. and the other six with the L.M.S., each company should give them part-time holidays as prescribed by the Act.
The Deputy knows quite well that those are not the circumstances with which we have to deal. A man who works six months for the same employer is entitled to the privileges of the Act.
Mr. Byrne
I am asking the Minister to consider the desirability of introducing legislation to give holidays with pay to those casual workers.
The matter has been fully considered. The Deputy, and everybody else, has been invited to give us suggestions, but has failed to do so.
Mr. Byrne
No; I have given that suggestion—a very practical one—to which the Minister could give effect.
The suggestion has nothing to do with the problem. The problem relates to dockers who are employed by different employers in the same week.
Mr. Larkin
It is only an electioneering stunt. Do not mind him.