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

I thank Deputy Martin Kenny for sharing time. As we come up to Christmas, in areas like Ballyfermot, where I live, and other large working-class communities, moneylenders will be seen knocking on the doors of workers. In the past, they would have been trying the doors of the very poorest, those locked into long-term unemployment. This year, however, they will get a positive response from many people who are in employment but who nevertheless require a moneylending service because of the effects of disgraceful if-and-when contracts, a lack of banded hours and the precarious nature of so much modern employment.

I question the whole business of the committee in spending 16 months and 14 hours considering this Bill and seeing 45 witnesses. The Fianna Fáil Deputy present chaired the committee very well and I served on it but I no longer do so. That is testimony to the fact that we put a great deal of work into this Bill and we are now being told that it is being pulled for a Government Bill. I question the whole process of democracy here. Workers and other people elect us to do a job and the evidence is there that we have done the job. Everybody would acknowledge, and the Minister of State acknowledged this also, that we did a good job, that good work was done, but now the rug is being pulled from under us. It is not because the Minister of State has something better up his sleeve. It is not because he is concerned about these workers who will have to turn to moneylenders because they are utterly broke and cannot even plan for Christmas for their families. It is because he has been lobbied hard by ISME, IBEC and all those witnesses who appeared before the committee and said that this measure was intolerable and that it would cost them too much.

Previous speakers spoke about the lives of workers but I want to speak about the lives of the wealthy and those who make the profit. EUROSTAT figures show that profitability up to 2014 - I do not have the figures for the last three years - in the accommodation and food sector exceeded the 2007 pre-crash high by 40%. Profits in that sector are 40% higher than they were in 2007 prior to the crash. What might they be now three years later? God only knows. In the wholesale and retail sector profits are 11% higher than they were in the pre-crash years. However, workers' wages have fallen because their hours have fallen. Their income and living standards have fallen but the profits of the 1% who rule this world have gone through the roof. That is not a peculiarly Irish or a "Father Ted" phenomenon, that pattern can be found across modern developed countries where precarious if-and-when contracts are being used not by only by small firms but by very large firms whose profits have gone through the roof. Unless we have legislation enacted very soon to rein these people in, we will deny workers throughout this country the ability to have fairness and decency.

I want to cite a quote from one of the Dunnes Stores workers. She said: "They use the allocation of hours as a mechanism to control us." That is exactly what is going on here. A control mechanism is being used over workers, for them to be bullied, to be threatened and to live in fear in order to keep them in their place. As it happens, the largest cohort of them are women. This society is getting sick of the control, degradation and abuse of women right from the sexism of the industries down to the hours we work. If there is any pussyfooting or delay on this Bill I would like over the next period to see the unions organise strikes and demonstrations and begin to threaten this Government and the political forces within it. The Minister of State is not listening to democracy, to the elected people, to the workers who elected those people or to their trade unions. He is listening to the IBECs of this world. Senator Frances Black told me the other day when we talked about the alcohol Bill that IBEC has lobbied this Parliament 600 times on that Bill. I would love to know how often it has lobbied on this Bill. It would be interesting to find that out and I will check how often it has lobbied the Government on this Bill. That is what is going on but it has to end. The only force that can end it is the force and the power of the people, organised by their trade unions. That will be the solution unless the Minister of State delivers the change through this House.

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