Ms Patricia King:

As I said, six months is probably not the correct amount of time for the reasons we stated related to unfair dismissals. There would be an argument that a person who worked for 12 months plus one day would be covered by the unfair dismissals legislation and, therefore, it is a case of job done. As a trade union official, if I was to make an argument that there is a concerted pattern over a long period of time a stronger argument could be made. That is my judgment and is a personal view having represented workers for years. If one is able to convince someone that one is looking back over a solid period of time the chances are that one will convince him or her of that view.

As the committee knows, we have engaged with the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and have campaigned for years. We have met many Ministers over the years and in the past couple of months, and have tried to convince them that they need to put in place legislation which deals not just with banded hours but also zero hour contracts, minimum hours of attendance at work and so on, a lot of which would be based on the UL review which the last Government sponsored.

Employers have also had such discussions. Luckily for both groups they have not been in the same room, but we have argued the points with officials in the Department.