Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman and everybody else for being patient and tolerant with me, as I have to leave to attend another committee meeting dealing with another Bill.

I thank Ms Annie Hoey for her presentation. I would like to ask her a few questions. I was struck by what she said about it being an incredibly dangerous misconception to think that students do not need to know what to expect in their working lives, and I would like to fully back that up.

Young people not just here but across the globe are being taken for granted in a major way these days because the idea is put about that they do not need to know how to live because they are hippies or precarious and other nonsense. In fact, we saw in the French elections and the recent elections in Austria that young people under 25 are very much the disaffected, the minority and those with the highest unemployment levels.

On the basis that students need to know the hours for which they are contracted, can Ms Hoey tell me whether the USI has come across students who are employed and suffer punishment from employers where they have challenged the hours they were given or not given? In other words, this is where they have stuck up for themselves and asserted that it is not possible to work on an if-and-when basis or to live on the resulting pay. This is where they have asked for better hours or set hours or more of an idea of when they are working. Is that challenge or request used to punish them? In other words "Shut up or you will get no hours at all". I have certainly come across that anecdotally. Ms Hoey did not refer to bogus self-employment contracts with companies like Deliveroo. Instead of being a worker, the person is considered to be self-employed when in fact he or she is very reliant on apps and hours dropping into his or her lap as somebody who is supposed to look like he or she is well able to look after his or her own employment. Does USI come across that much?

We had witnesses in to speak on the Bill from ISME and small and medium business in the retail and hospitality sectors. One after another, they indicated to us that the zero-hour contract does not really exist. There was a huge level of denial of its existence on the one hand while on the other hand they said that if the Bill was enacted, it would be a disaster for the hotel and retail industries. We were told it would be particularly disastrous in the era of Brexit, which I believe is being used as a stick with which to beat everybody in the current climate. We are told not to dare to open our mouths about anything because Brexit is going to come down and batter us over the head. Has the USI come across that attitude among employers? They deny these contracts exist, but they do not want to give an inch when it comes to people asking for their rights.