Dr. Michelle O'Sullivan:

There were two parts to the research. One was to look at the quantitative side and to conduct interviews with stakeholders. We would very much like to have done a national survey if it was at all possible, but it was not possible in the six-month timeframe that we were given.

We mentioned in the report that there are difficulties in terms of there being no national data currently collected on how many do zero hours work. That is an important point because even if we had started collecting data at the very beginning of our research, we would not have found the problem of zero hours work. The experience is similar in the UK where significant numbers of people are now seen to be on zero-hour contracts.

The big increases have been partly explained by the statistics office in the UK by the fact that people did not realise they were on zero-hour contracts until media attention focused on them. There would have been problems even from the beginning with us asking people if they were on a zero-hour contract. It would not have captured the level of zero hours work that occurs. A particular feature of zero-hours work internationally is that there is a variable element to the working hours and we looked at data on that. In terms of zero-hours work, we conducted interviews with 82 representatives across civil society organisations and trade unions. The civil society organisations, which represented the unemployed, migrants, women and the youth, as well as the trade unions all expressed significant concern about the use of zero-hours work through if-and-when contracts. We have examples of contracts from different types of companies which show that the use of if-and-when contracts is a problem.