Ms Edel McGinley:

The purpose of the look-back period is to reflect a situation in which people are getting extra hours they are not contracted for, for example, if they are contracted for four hours but are actually completing 20 hours. The look-back period averages it out. It looks at an average over the look-back period. If one averages out over an 18-month period, it is open to abuse. For example, coming up to the last three months, an employer could reduce people's hours to put them on a banded hour contract that is much lower than what they were performing for a long time. An 18-month period is a little bit too long.