Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

If I have heard the Minister correctly, she has answered the wrong question because I am not asking for the system to be changed based on the hours worked but rather on the income received for the time worked. I will give the Minister an example. At present, people employed, for example for three days, receive supplementary income for the two days they do not work. If someone works 15 hours over five days, with three hours a day, and receives €130 from his or her employer, that person will receive the part-time job incentive scheme payment for up to one year. What happens to that person after the year? Recently, I had the case of a cleaner at a famous shop in Ballyfermot, who all of a sudden was told the supplementary payment of €120 a week she received from the Department of Social Protection would be stopped because the year was up. This very distressed woman came to me, and I went to the Intreo office, where the payment was extended for two months. That time is up this month, and the woman will be living on the poverty line or will have to give up her job because her boss is not willing to pack all of those hours into two or three days as that does not suit him. Increasingly it does not suit employers to facilitate workers, and workers are being forced into precarious hours, whereby the advantage is to the employer and the disadvantage is to the worker.

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