Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 36:

In page 14, between lines 20 and 21, to insert the following: “(15) In the event of hours becoming available an employer shall be required to offer any surplus hours to existing part-time employees first.”.

This is a very important amendment. It is based on the Directive 97/81/EC on part-time workers, which this country has not implemented yet. I noted earlier on that the Minister said that she is not prepared to put into legislation directives which have not been passed by the EU. This was passed. I will explain exactly what it proposes. It says:

As far as possible, employers should give consideration to:

(a) requests by workers to transfer from full-time to part-time work that becomes available in the establishment;

(b) requests by workers to transfer from part-time to full-time work or to increase their working time should the opportunity arise;

(c) the provision of timely information on the availability of part-time and full-time positions in the establishment in order to facilitate transfers from full-time to part-time or vice versa;

That means that if a worker was working for eight hours a week, resigned and moved away, those eight hours would go to the other employees in the establishment. They could apply to have those eight hours added to their 12 hours, or, for example, if someone wanted to move from 20 hours to eight, the hours would become available within the establishment such that someone could increase his or her hours. It is part of the European part-time work directive and we should seriously consider providing for it.