Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

That is not simply my or my Department's position; it is confirmed by a 2003 European Commission report on the implementation of the directive.

I do not want anyone in this House to take lectures from Sinn Féin on employment protection in general or low pay in particular. Sinn Féin poses as the worker's friend in this part of the country, but in Northern Ireland it is a party to a government with a record on these issues which we can examine and legitimately compare with our record down here. When, for example, the INTO, in resisting cuts to teaching jobs and further cuts across the education budget, claimed that the budget would be "central to maintaining a low wage economy for at least a generation", it was a Sinn Féin Minister for Education, John O'Dowd, MLA, who was in its sights. In Northern Ireland, where there are 32,000 people employed under zero hour contracts and where working time legislation provides less protection for workers than our own 1997 Act, the Executive's proposal is to regulate these contracts, not to impose an immediate ban as Sinn Féin calls for here.

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