Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for speaking while the Deputy was talking, but I had to ask a new question.

I would have opposed this amendment because it would create an onerous situation for some employers. If one person asks to have a reflected look-back, four weeks would probably be too long and the employer should be reverting to him or her within a week or ten days. If 21 people in Spar in Navan ask for it on the same day, though, there might not be the capacity to handle all of those requests in such a short time. If the Deputy withdraws his amendment, we will consider the question of weeks versus employee numbers in a company. For argument's sake, a company like Dunnes Stores has staff in a specific HR department who are employed to do this work. In smaller organisations, the boss might be the person who has to do everything. I know what the Deputy is trying to do, in that we do not want people sitting around for weeks just because their employers are of a particular view, but there are also employers who are the bosses of everything in their company, and I do not want to establish a requirement that they cannot meet through no fault of their own. Could we examine the wording?