Mr. Gerry Light:

It is very clear in the current legislation. It is a fairly simplistic model and the provisions contained in the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 are not satisfactory. If a worker makes himself or herself available for work and that work is not made available, there is a very small compensation of 25% of the minimum 15 hours for which the worker must make himself or herself available. That corresponds to three or four hours, which is minuscule. I would say that the application of the legislation is largely not practised outside of the unionised sector. Within the unionised sector, we are now making advances in the other direction entirely, which is the banded contract arrangements that we are negotiating, even in the teeth of the recession, with reputable and willing employers. That shows that it can be done. I will go back to Senator Quinn's question earlier. If there is a will to engage, both sides can sit down and figure out where costs can be cut.

Deputy Tóibín made an important point, which we highlighted in our presentation, in referring to the basic standards that are needed for somebody to participate properly in society. Whatever is required to allow that should be the basic return. If a business cannot provide that return to its employees, we have to ask whether it is worthwhile offering those jobs and whether we should put our efforts into different areas.

We need to beef up the legislation on zero hours contracts. We would like it to follow our achievements in the area of banded contracts. We would like to see greater compensation awarded to the worker. The current scenario is that I must make myself available, so I cannot do other things such as look for that second job because I am effectively on call. It interferes with some of the very complex social welfare arrangements that we currently have in place. We need to ensure that the compensation is greater. Greater onus must be placed on the employer to ensure that adequate notice is given to employees of the extent to which they are required to make themselves available. Running a business can be complex at times, but it is not rocket science, particularly when it comes down to rostering staff. Even in the current difficult times in which we live, staffing requirements can be determined to a fairly exact degree. We have passed that by and many employers now figure out their staffing requirements first and then figure out how to reduce those staffing costs even further, with a view to increasing or maintaining the profitability they may have had two or three years ago. Common sense tells us that such a degree of profitability is not attainable any more, but profitability is still attainable if we are all realistic and generous towards each other and figure out what we need to take out.

We also need to have a provision in the zero hours legislation whereby there is an obligation on the employer, after a period of time, to sit down with a worker to figure out the hours secured over a period of time and put them into a contract of employment as a minimum number of hours. Increasing the threshold from 15 hours would also help significantly.

A point was made about the intricacies and complications that arise in respect of the interface with the social welfare system. This is a major issue. Because of those intricacies, the relevant provisions are not apparent or known to many, not least to the individuals who suffer when they are thrown into those circumstances. There are five broad areas in the report, but I would like to put one of these on the record. I refer to the treatment of flexible workers under the social welfare system. Flexible workers cannot meet the substantial loss criteria. Under-employment of flexible workers is not recognised in the current social welfare code, which means that we still discount work on the basis of days lost and not hours. If I lose hours, these are still calculated on the basis of days under the current social welfare code and in the legislation. It is impossible for precarious workers to establish normal patterns of work, which is often a requirement for social welfare, as they do not have normal patterns of work. Our presentation has shown how much these patterns fluctuate from one week to the next. In certain circumstances, flexible workers cannot qualify for systematic short-term work options. That is a plethora of different requirements, depending on whether it is systematic short-term work, permanent or temporary work and so on. This entire area must be examined and we must ensure that we are not making a difficult situation worse for these precarious workers, because if we do that we are doubling the burden. I made that point during the presentation.

One of the main provisions for the support of low-paid workers is family income supplement. Due to the way it is set out at the moment and due to the minimum hours threshold - 19 hours - many precarious workers cannot qualify. Due to the fluctuating nature of their work, their circumstances change from one week to the next. One week they can be above the ceiling and the next week they can be below it. Many employers are reluctant to sign off on family income supplement forms as well. Notwithstanding the fact that the workers are at the threshold, the employers cannot be certain that their employees will be at the threshold the following week.

The interface of the social welfare code with working hours is probably worth an entire committee meeting in itself, but-----