Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Minister's answer does not address the issue I raised. As SPARK made clear to the Minister at the meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social Protection, many employers of employees on low-hour contracts will not sign these forms. People have come to my clinic to make the same point. The forms require employers to indicate that somebody works a minimum of 19 hours per week. Low-hour contract employers should be banned. However, given that the Minister will not ban them, they will not fill in a form in which they commit to employing people for 19 hours per week. Consequently, people who are entitled to FIS and who desperately need it given that they are on low-hour contracts and on low pay, cannot get FIS. The Minister needs to do away with the Part 8 form and allow for another mechanism by which these workers can demonstrate that they fit the criteria of working the hours required.

The three-month rule is a problem. Given the precarious nature of their employment, many of these workers will not necessarily fit into the rule. The jobseeker's allowance payment available to people who work three days does nothing for workers on low-hour contracts who work four or five days but might work only four hours per day. They cannot get jobseeker's allowance and, if their employers will not fill out the form, they cannot get FIS. The problem must be addressed for the sake of low-paid workers, many of them women, who need income support.

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