Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the cross-party support, but I am giving a historical perspective to this. I believe it is interesting that it has taken 11 years. The work of others, including the former Deputy, Emmet Stagg, and current Senators Ged Nash agus Ivana Bacik, has been acknowledged. I also want to add my thanks for the approach of the Minister, Deputy Mary Mitchell O'Connor. Quite frankly, without her goodwill and the goodwill of her officials at her instruction, we would not have advanced this Bill. One of the Deputies mentioned that perhaps we did not have quite the same goodwill in the past from others, but we have had it from the Minister and I acknowledge that.

We have a lot more work to do in this area of tackling the casualisation of work, but this is an important start. I look forward to working with my party in co-operation with all parties in the House to ensure workers' rights are vindicated and that we have decent standards of living to achieve our collective objective of having not only work available to every individual who wishes to work but of having work that will be rewarded to the extent that we have a living wage for families. Getting up and going out to work must make a substantial financial difference in order that people can plan their future knowing the number of hours they are going to work and knowing the income that is going to accrue to them. Collectively, we can work to achieve that objective.

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