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

I welcome Deputy O'Dea's statement that he recognises that multiple and narrow bands of hours place an administrative burden on businesses because that is what this is going to do. We were cognisant of all the points that were raised on Second Stage, on which we reflected and in respect of which we have moved. The band of hours provides the security for which people are looking but also the flexibility to allow businesses to adhere to them, to manage them and to work with them. Anybody who feels penalised when on a band of hours with a nine-hour difference between the beginning and the end is protected from being marginalised or maligned by all the other penalisation clauses in the Bill. If anybody is on 24 hours and the boss gets a pain in a butt with them and puts them down to 16 hours, all the other provisions in the Bill ensure they have recourse to action and that the employer cannot do it.

This legislation is not just about protecting people's rights, although that is a massive part of it. It is also about making sure the legislation is workable in practice. We have to ensure we do not provide something to industry that is not workable in practice and costs money which, ultimately, will cost the State jobs. We need to have a happy medium and I ask members to reflect on that. We need to provide people with security of tenure in their weekly and monthly working arrangements and to make sure it is practicable for businesses. It must not just apply to one specific industry. This legislation will impact on every single sector in Irish society and not just the retail sector. If we wanted to reflect on the retail industry we would have to talk about industry-specific legislation, but this legislation will empower, engage and inform every single business in the country.