Ms Patricia Callan:

We have tried to be quite clear in our contributions with regard to the difference between zero-hour contracts, flexible if-and-when contracts and other types of contracts because legally they are very different. We fully accept that there are many variations in employment. The specific zero-hours piece is the one that does not exist because one has to compensate people for a minimum of 15 hours or 25% of hours worked, regardless of whether the employer needs the person or not. My colleague, Ms McGuone's full-time job is in helping our member companies to be compliant, to deal with the other side of this, and it is certainly not the case that people are trying to undermine employees' entitlements. If anything, employees tend to come to their employers, as the first port of call, to ask about their entitlements. It is interesting that the Deputy named a specific company, which is a concern, because we should not legislate for what is going on in one company or even a number of companies. There are 238,000 businesses and we cannot control that one company. We certainly do not speak for it. People like that will come up with other ways around the issue, regardless of the legislation. It behoves us to look at how the majority of businesses are behaving and what this legislation might do to them. All of us here have one common aim, which is to get the country back to full employment. This requires more people to set up businesses, to navigate these complexities and to deal with these issues.

On the issue of low pay, Ireland has the second highest minimum wage in Europe, so the Deputy cannot argue that our workers are underpaid, as of today. I believe that our experience in that regard is that every time the minimum wage goes up, workers reduce their hours. If the members read the testimony I forwarded to the committee, I show the scenario where people keep cutting back their hours because they want to retain welfare benefits. People are actually leaving the labour market because they are worried. Real reform around welfare is needed to look at these factors and ensure that it is not mitigating against people working. Time and time again I have seen situations where companies had to put people on a three-day week during the recession. Now there is enough work to bring them back for five days a week but people are refusing to return. That is the biggest problem. These are skilled workers and their employers want them to work more but they have decided that it is not worth their while after tax - Ireland is still very heavy on taxation - and welfare are taken into account. It shows there are loads of other factors at play, but our ambition is to create good quality jobs for everybody. That is in all our interests.