Mr. John Barry:

The Organisation of Working Time Act is the Act that addressed hours, breaks, etc. It addressed maximum working hours, the issue of the original zero-hours contract and declared that minimum hours must be paid in those circumstances. It is the Act that currently addresses the whole question of working hours. I do not see the logic of bringing in a new Act to do this when there is already legislation there that needs to be looked at. There was a lot of criticism of the Organisation of Working Time Act back in 2000. To be quite honest, it was a waste of time going in and making presentations on it, because those presentations are still collecting dust somewhere. Nothing has changed in the Act with all of its imperfections. We have all had to work with that Act in the meanwhile. The Labour Court has done its job to try to make the Act reasonably applicable. It was a badly-written Act in the first place, but it is the Act that deals with these issues. My view is that that is where this matter should be going, rather than as a separate stand-alone Act.

As I said, the enforcement side of the Industrial Relations Act allows the adjudicators and the Labour Court to recommend what they regard as just and equitable in the circumstances. The Labour Court is given a huge remit in dealing with employee disputes, including if an employee feels they are being unfairly treated at work because they are not getting either guaranteed hours or the hours have been unfairly distributed. A classic claim to the Labour Court is about the unfair distribution of overtime hours, for example, and things like that. Those issues can be dealt with and addressed by the Labour Court. As was said by the previous presenter, the Labour Court is very fair. He has said that himself. It has its finger on the pulse and can deal with these issues. While I would say its recommendations are only recommendations and are not binding, they carry an awful lot of moral support. Certainly, an employer generally does not like to go to the Labour Court and have a recommendation against it that it then ignores. All of its employees can then see that it is ignoring the Labour Court. We have the resources already. We do not need to be creating a whole new horse for this when have the horse. I am simply saying that we should take a practical look at that, use it and not reinvent the wheel.