Ms Maeve McElwee:

IBEC represents a significant number of small and medium-sized companies, both through the SFA, Small Firms Association, and its wider membership. It is not just an issue that we see for our larger members.

This is about the reality of how people work and the flexibilities people want to see in their working lives. A large number of students work, and need that opportunity, throughout their period of education. Employers work with them on a flexible basis on what times suit and so forth. An employer who has to trade on an ongoing basis, and needs some certainty around financial commitments and obligations they may be creating in terms of continuing to flex hours up and down, will have to have certainty within that six-month period as to how many hours they have committed if the likelihood is the employee can tell the employer they have an obligation in terms of the number of hours they flexed up and down to accommodate the employee’s needs and earning capabilities during this time period. Unfortunately, it will reduce an employer's ability to work with the hours somebody might want so as to offer flexibility into the labour market. That ability to be able to work with somebody's own needs and requirements will be significantly curtailed. Again, an employer cannot continue to allow an obligation to grow into the long term without having any certainty that they will be able to deliver work to meet the hours they have agreed over a short period.

We see this in many sectors, particularly in hospitality and retail. For example, a local shop situated beside the University of Limerick could be enormously busy during term time but exceedingly quiet outside of it. Those hours will fluctuate considerably. Even if the business knows that, in a six-month period, it may have committed more hours than it would be able to give in the next six-month period. It is the same with hospitality where somebody may work additional hours to cover for a colleague. Hospitality is also unpredictable. Many of our members, such as the local pub or the local hotel, tell us about unpredictable surges in trade such as funerals, banquets or family gatherings.

There are unpredictable surges in trade and, over a six-month period, a business may need people to flex up and to be able to flex those hours back down without creating an ongoing commitment into the longer term, because a business has no certainty as to whether those issues or types of events are going to arise again, when they will arise again and for whom.

It is understood that there are issues in terms of compliance. In every aspect of legislation, there are always issues of compliance. The major concern for employers is the scale of what is proposed to deal with the issue that is there. I acknowledge that people do have some difficulties, and they can be severe difficulties. However, as has already been said, the vast majority of employers have invested in their employees. It is in their interests to work with their employees and be good employers, particularly given the cost of recruitment, hiring and training in order to secure good employment opportunities for their employees. The unintended consequence of this Bill will be an inability to be able to flex that work, leading to a situation in which the hours that are provided at the outset will be stuck to very rigidly and will not be able to be flexed up and down. Therefore, nobody would have the opportunity to increase their hours as their circumstances permit.