Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 10 Mar 1992

Vol. 417 No. 1

Written Answers. - Worker Protection Legislation.

Nuala Fennell

Ceist:

90 Mrs. Fennell asked the Minister for Labour whether his Department have carried out any survey on the effects of the implementation of the Part-Time Workers Bill; whether this Bill has caused any job losses; if he has satisfied himself that this legislation will not affect any potential employment; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

Minister for Labour (Mr. Cowen)

The Worker Protection (Regular Part-Time Employees) Act, 1991 was enacted in response to concerns that a growing segment of workers in regular part-time employment remained outside the scope of a broad range of protective labour legislation. The Act is designed to take into account both the legitimate needs of employers for flexibility in running their businesses and the real need of regular part-time workers for statutory protection in relation to their employment.

I have no proposals to carry out a survey of the kind mentioned by the Deputy. I am advised that the Worker Protection (Regular Part-Time Employees) Act, 1991 has not had, and is unlikely to have, any significant effect on the labour market. In this connection, it is worthwhile to note that only 23 redundancies of this category of employee have been notified to my Department since extension to them of the terms of the Redundancy Payments Acts, in June 1991.

The kind of information on part-time working that the Deputy has in mind will be available in due course through the annual Labour Force Survey. The results of the 1991 survey will be available later this year. Those results and results in future years will give a clear indication of any changes in relation to part-time working since the Act was introduced.

As the Deputy will be aware, most part-time workers are women and I understand that research has also been commissioned by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Womens' Rights and this should also be available later this year.

I can assure the Deputy that I will consider the results of these studies in due course.