John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

In the small amount of time I have, I will concentrate on zero-hours contracts, through which an employee is reduced to a commodity and bought and used by many employers as the need arises. It is shameful and immoral. As the Minister of State knows, the employee receives no sick pay or limited holiday pay and there is no guarantee of work or pay. Research undertaken by Mandate in 2013 and 2014 found that 17% of people living below the poverty line worked in precarious jobs on zero-hours contracts.

The pathetic argument put forward by businesses is that these contracts provide flexibility, which is just another word for profiting by exploiting people. It shows the avarice of some companies that have turnovers of hundreds of millions of euro each year. That they would treat human beings with such contempt and knowingly deprive them in essence of a reasonable quality of life is shocking.

I cannot understand why, according to the Government's amendment, the University of Limerick has been appointed to commence a study on the prevalence of zero-hours contracts and their impact on employees. Does the Government not know already? Has its members not spoken to anyone who is on a zero-hours contract? Have they not met young women who do not know how their hours will be fixed at the weekend, who arrive at work on Thursday and are told that they might be working on Saturday only to turn up on Saturday to be told that there is no work for them? Does the Government not know what that is like? Has it not read Mandate's and SIPTU's papers? For the past three or four years, they have been telling people what has been happening.

I know the Minister of State knows all of this. I am not criticising him, as he must be given an opportunity to deal with this issue, but consider how quickly we bailed out the banks. We passed the Irish Water legislation after a four-hour debate. Why can we not introduce immediate legislation to address zero-hours contracts?

The appeals tribunal of the Labour Relations Commission's Rights Commissioner Service was mentioned. It means nothing to employers like Dunnes Stores. Under current legislation, such employers can decide not to pay any attention to what the commissioners say. We need definite legislation to eliminate the horrific zero-hours contracts. It could be achieved easily with a day's sitting of the Dáil.

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