Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to express my disappointment with the Minister of State's response to Deputy Gino Kenny's contribution. I am involved in the jobs committee. We have been scrutinising Deputy Cullinane's Bill. We had a lot of representation from business organisations. The one thing that united them all is that they came in with no solution as to the problem we have. Deputy Kenny said it there as well. There are a lot of people in this country affected by this. It is not just the zero-hour contract but also the banded hours contract. I think the Minister of State misunderstood what banded hours means. The Bill is not asking for extra hours, it is asking for people to get the hours they actually work and for the hours to be defined. That would allow people to go to their local credit union and get a loan or probably even a mortgage because they would know exactly what hours they were working. I am very disappointed that the Government is not supporting that amendment.

Workers need to be protected. We have a huge problem in this country with people on low pay and precarious hours. People do not know what days they are working from one week to the next and cannot organise child care or get loans when they need them. The Bill has been scrutinised very strongly. We have been doing that for a number of months. We have had a balanced view in the last couple of weeks with the trade unions and USI having come before the committee. I believe the Bill is well-crafted and deserves to come back to the Dáil.

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