Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their attendance and the presentation. I appreciate it. I also found the report they produced very useful when researching the problem in this area. The report states that zero-hour contracts are unusually prevalent and widely used. However, if-and-when contracts obviously are too and there is an urgent need to address this. That is what the Bill is intended to do. We all have been visited in our constituency offices over the years by people who are on either zero-hour or if-and-when contracts. They do not have any stability around their working time so they do not know what hours they will be working in the following week. It prevents them from planning their daily activities and their household budgets, getting loans from the credit union or applying for loans or mortgages. The Bill put forward by Deputy Cullinane is important and I welcome Dr. O'Sullivan's comment that she agrees the Bill is an attempt to deal with the reality of work and those contracts.