Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

They respect their staff and see their staff as part of their workplace. However, as well as showing contempt for their workers and the industrial relations process of this country, Dunnes Stores is showing contempt for the 95% of Irish employers who are good employers and who have respect for those who work for them.

The silence of the organisations on this issue is not good. There needs to be a very clear statement, as there has been cross-party in this House, from all the social partners. The Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, has left, but if the notion of social partnership and social cohesion or whatever it is termed these days is to mean anything, someone needs to stand up and make a very clear statement that we do not want an employment regime in Ireland in which there is no recourse and no way to challenge a company that treats its workers with contempt and uses intimidatory tactics on its employees after they go on strike. Employers need to stand up and say that this is not how they do their business, because it is not how they do their business. There are agreements in the services sector with hotels and with companies in the same sector as Dunnes, which Mandate has managed to agree. Other companies see these agreements as a very important part of their businesses. However, this issue is a concern.

The last time we had collective bargaining legislation it was struck down by another famous company that does not do unions. I hope the Minister of State, in the course of tomorrow's wrap up, will give some sort of indication that the constitutional issues around the 2001 Act have been dealt with in advance of the new Bill.

We are moving our amendment because the commitment in Deputy Tóibín's motion is to provide a clear legal entitlement to workers to full-time work. Our experience of labour law is that this is too vague a statement. It could be abused by employers or workers who may try to destroy the flexibility of a good company or a good relationship. We are seeking to tighten up on the wording in the motion by providing for a clear legal entitlement for workers to be able to request extra hours. Apart from that, we are in general agreement with the motion.

Banded-hour contracts are a basic requirement. Ironically enough, it is not a basic requirement in this profession. Every Deputy will have sat down with people applying for a mortgage who work 35 or 39 hours a week but who cannot prove it to a bank. They cannot prove that they are getting those hours and that they have a guarantee to those hours. Deputies will have sat down to bring them through loan applications and other kinds of banking experience. These people will have sat down with their families on a Sunday evening to organise their week, but they do not know from one day to the next what hours they will be doing. They do not know the hours they will be called into work and the hours they will need child care. They do not know what hours they are available to do basic things. No one can say that that is fair, that it is a decent standard or that it comes close to dignity in the workplace.

It is quite extraordinary. The Minister, Deputy Bruton, was quite bolshie, for want of a better word, in his speech. He seemed not to hear what is going on in Dunnes Stores -----

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