Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This amendment is why I am sitting through this committee meeting. It is critically important and would be an enormous addition for many in the State who are underemployed. The study of the prevalence of zero hour contracts revealed the prevalence of part-time workers who were not part time out of choice. When we look back and consider other payments that have been changed by the Department, including the cuts to the one-parent family payment introduced by Deputy Joan Burton who said it was being done to encourage single parents to look for more hours and allow them to avail of more hours, rather than having the luxury of all of the extra money in social welfare. That is partly a different argument. The point is that nobody has a legal right to access extra hours to fulfil that objective. We should be doing it and it would be far better and in line with the EU directive. It would give far greater security. We hear slogans about people getting up in the morning and such like, but it is not just unemployment that pushes people into poverty. It is also low paid and inadequate hours and underemployment which we need to tackle from the point of view of providing security for workers. In that context, an employer should be obliged to offer hours to a current worker who is seeking more to give him or her access to more income if needed. It would also reward loyalty and not be too onerous. It would be a move forward in places such as Dunnes Stores in which over 80% of the workforce are women, many of whom are the main earner in a family. They have a desire to be given more hours but often cannot get them. That can be manipulated if an employee stands up for himself or herself. That is the key.