Mr. Neil McDonnell:

We will not read either the submission originally made to the Minister on foot of the consultation or our response to the committee on foot of the consultation. I simply will summarise ISME's response to the five particular questions we were asked.

I am accompanied by my colleague, Mr. John Barry, who is a member of the national council. Mr. Barry also runs a human resources consultancy so he can speak as an employer and as an adviser to employers should members wish to put any questions to him.

In response to the five particular questions that the committee asked, the first relates to the prevalence of zero-hour contracts. Our response last year was that the University of Limerick study establishes no evidence of prevalence. I am sorry if that sounds like a mouthful but, as employers, we feel that we are entitled to ask the industrial relations machinery of the State to establish the size of the problem before the State enacts legislation or a Member brings forward a Private Members' Bill to address it. As to whether this form of contract should be banned, we do not believe it should because there is a desire on the part of employees and employers that it should remain in place in certain circumstances. That is not to say that we support any form of abuse of contracts of this nature where it does occur.

ISME was asked to comment on the flexibilities described in the Bill. We consider the obligations imposed on employers in this Bill to be excessive, especially the requirement for the employer to estimate all the hours for the week or month ahead and to display these in the Irish and English languages. We ask the committee to note that - by comparison with the requirements in place under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 and the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 - those obligations go considerably beyond what is already provided for.

We were also asked to comment on whether workers should be allowed to request minimum hours. Consistent with how we answered the fifth question, we take the view that any legislative response to this problem must be informed by evidence. When we see the evidence of what is happening, we will react fairly to it. First, there should be an evidence-based analysis of the treatment of workers who are on zero-hour or low-hour contracts. Second, there should be an evidence-based analysis detailing the failures of the current controls that exist under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 and of the enforcement measures that are in place. This analysis should specifically look at the enforcement measures that are available to the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, and how those who used to be National Employment Rights Authority, NERA, inspectors but who are now WRC inspectors are failing to address this problem. There is an obligation on Government and on the members of the committee. We want a regulatory impact assessment to be carried out before the Bill is progressed.

We do not believe that the remit of the Low Pay Commission should be expanded in order to permit a review of these proposals. We would like to discover where current legislation is failing or where it is falling down in the context of enforcement. I would make the general observation that there is a tendency for the House to respond to an identified problem in the workplace by introducing legislation rather than by seeking to understand why the available enforcement measures do not address the problem at hand. If current enforcement is failing, why do the Members of the Houses believe that introducing more legislation is going to fix the issue? Look first at what is going wrong and then tell us how the gap needs to be bridged with new legislation. Let us be honest, employers typically fall in to two categories; those employers who observe and comply with employment law and those employers who do not. If the Houses legislate without understanding what it is they are legislating for, they are simply increasing the gap between compliant and non-compliant employers and we do not believe anything would be achieved by doing so. Non-compliant employers are going to ignore any new legislation unless enforcement of the legislation is ensured. These are the observations of ISME and we are happy to take any questions the members of the committee may wish to pose.