Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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It must be stated at the outset that no one wants to see workers exploited, but no one wants to see anyone going out of business either. Therefore, it is always a balancing act. Perhaps I have missed them, but would it be possible to be furnished with statistics on low income and low hours and high income and low hours? I have worked in retail and in bars and restaurants. I have also worked as an IT recruiter, where I had IT contractors on very healthy hourly salaries. They wanted to work on contracts and they wanted zero-hour contracts and the flexibility of being able to work remotely or from home at hours of their choosing. We have to mindful of that type of situation also. If I have missed the statistics, I would be grateful if they could be furnished as they would be useful to the committee.

What is happening in terms of arrangements on profit sharing, etc., particularly in retail and the hotel industry, as commercial improvement happens within the business? Is anything set in stone by the organisations on the issue? We also have to be mindful that there is a change in working culture, as has been stated, because of the crash and what has happened. Now it is being pushed and rolled to employees to look to having micro-earnings across multi-streams because this mitigates risk in the event of, God forbid, another crash. If something goes down, not all their eggs will be in the one basket. Many thought leaders are telling employees, particularly those in the digital economy, that they should have multi-stream incomes and that these may be micro-incomes across multi-streams. It is similar to the economy we are trying to build, that is, that there are a number of different pillars so, if one drops, at least more are in place that are sustainable. This seems to be the new model towards which we are moving.

Given that the representatives of the organisations are here, I have a flip question for them. In their opinion, what would improve the commercial environment for their organisations and thus, perhaps, increase employment? The Government introduced and retained the 9% VAT rate in the hospitality industry. What other suggestions would they have?

I would like to hear more statistics on the likes of bogus self-employment contracts, which have been referred to during the meeting. Could we get those statistics? I understand that it may be going on in the market and people have evidence of it, but we need statistics on it for transparency and information purposes.