Mr. John Douglas:

Mandate Trade Union deals ostensibly in the bar trade and the retail sector. As explained earlier to the committee, we have quite a number of banded hour agreements and collective agreements with all the major retailers bar one at this stage. That covers students, young people, women and men. There is no difference. A worker is a worker; he or she is entitled to the same rate of pay. It does not cause any problems for these very profitable retailers to employ students or not to employ students. In fact, students like certainty. They like to know when they can get off to college and when they get time to do their exams. They do not like being exploited.

This is not about creating a balance between flexibility and workers' rights. There is an abuse of power here. It is about people not knowing from one week to the next how much money they are going to earn. Will they have enough money to pay their rent, student accommodation, books and tuition fees? That is wrong and we have to call it wrong. Whether it is a student, a young worker, a female worker or some other worker, it is wrong. All we are asking is for a decency threshold. We have heard from Ms King that the figures are alarming. The employers in general cross all sectors - retail, hospitality, security and a whole other range. They have passed on their responsibility to provide decent jobs and a decent living wage to the State. The State is picking up the pieces through family income supplement, social welfare supplements, benefits and part-time dole. These workers can no longer contribute to the Exchequer because they are not earning enough to pay tax. They cannot be consumers in the local economy and create other jobs by having money to spend. They are trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty. The State is picking up the pieces.

We need to call it for what it is. It is mass exploitation. Whether it is students or young workers, precarious employment is wrong and we need to put a stop to it quickly. Zero-hour contracts and precarious employment are becoming too prevalent in the Irish economy. We are second only to America as OECD countries in the prevalence of low-paid jobs. We are a low-paid economy and this is going to have massive impacts on the Irish economy not only on our ability to provide services for people in terms of resources, but also on creating a consumer economy in which people have money to spend in the local economy. We have to deal with it and this Bill goes a long way to dealing with it.