Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. The Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017 does not make rules for any one company that the Deputy is here to make representations about today. It is to make sure we have a fair and balanced approach for workers and their employers in every single company in the country. The benefit that casual employees will see when we pass the Bill is that, if they are on an if-and-when contract and they have worked an average number of hours over a 12-month reference period, they will be entitled to be placed on a band of hours that reflects the reality of their working hours. Therefore, it will not be as the Deputy has described in his reflections. Employers will also be obliged, by the fifth day of employment after starting, to give employees a list of detailed information with regard to who they work for, what their contract is and whether it is fixed-term, as well as the expected hours of work - all of this before day five. Employees on if-and-when contracts will also benefit from the new minimum compensation provisions so when they are given notice of work but they do not receive those hours of work, they will have to be paid, and we agreed during Committee Stage this payment will be for three hours. Finally, employees on these contracts will also benefit from the reinforced anti-penalisation provisions so, if an employer penalises them or even threatens to penalise them, or gets one of their friends down the road to penalise them when they are on their way to work, they will be entitled to exercise their rights under the Act, bring a case to the Workplace Relations Commission and have that case adjudicated on and the employer reprimanded in the most effective way possible, which is through its pocket.

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