Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for her reply. The Government keeps coming back to us and saying there is the Workplace Relations Commission process. The Minister of State knows that some of the issues that affect teachers in the sector, such as bogus self-employment, the absence of employment contracts and paying less to non-native teachers, breach legislation and can be tackled through a third party although it is virtually impossible to do so because of the precarious nature of the work. The most prevalent issues are completely legal although they are wrong. They are things such as maintaining all teachers on fixed term or zero-hour contracts, not paying for non-contract hours worked, not paying sick pay, taking an anti-union approach, allowing a fixed term contract to expire in December and rehiring in January to avoid holiday pay and having no salary scales. None of those things is illegal because of the terrible employment legislation we have in this country. Those workers, through Unite, are looking for an SEO to be put into the qualifications and quality assurance (amendment) Bill. The Minister should at least meet the representatives of the unions.

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