Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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The Department would see that as applying to the civil and public service as equally as to the private sector. I understand how it works as I have a small amount of experience with it. If the statutory minimum – I understand what that is and how that works – comes in at five days, there is slightly more than a convention within the civil and public service that there would not be a hierarchy when it comes to the implementation of statutory forms of leave and that they would actually have something that is the norm right across the sector. It just strikes me that we are here debating legislation that I have sponsored, which provides for ten. However, in the event that is rolled back on by the Government or indeed cut in half down to five, that will cause a problem within the civil and public service. As a former representative for public sector workers, I do not think they would tolerate having a hierarchy or some kind of a tiered arrangement just simply because some organisations chose to be proactive. I would hope that the Department would reflect on the message that it sends, that ten days is the norm in the private sector where it is negotiated and it is the norm in the public service where it exists, yet the proposal will be to cut that in half. That is not a great place to start from. I completely understand that our witnesses are not here to defend the thought process behind it and I am not asking them to do that. However, some thought will have to be given by the Department to how this will be implemented. The colleagues of the people who will implement this in the civil and public service will be part of that two-tier arrangement. That does not send out a very good signal at all.

With the Chair’s indulgence, I reference the definition of an employee, which was referred to by Deputy Sherlock. I take Deputy Sherlock’s point. That is why I use the Organisation of Working Time Act, because I believe that contains within it sufficient definition. However, there is a broader piece of work that needs to be done and it is most likely done at the committee of which I am a permanent member – the Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment. We should look at that definition of what a worker is, because it is not what it would have been when our parents were heading off to work. It is different when we are heading off to work, definitely different when our kids will go to work and when our grandkids will go to work it will be different again. That needs to be updated to reflect all types of employment. I fully take on board the point made by Deputy Sherlock.