Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 6:

In page 11, to delete lines 30 to 34 and substitute the following:“week. The Minister shall before the coming into operation of this Act, draft regulations which will comprehensively outline the circumstances where work will be deemed casual for the purposes of this Act.”.

The reason I put down this amendment, as discussed to some extent on Committee Stage, is that section 15 of the Bill repeats the terms of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997, which basically gives compensation to people who are on call, as it were, or who are expected to turn up for work when there is no work made available for them. That is a fairly important provision. It is pretty central to employees' rights legislation and as I say, it is repeated practically word for word in this Bill.

Unfortunately this Bill provides an exception, as does the 1997 Act. It provides that if the work can be designated as "casual", then there will be no compensation if the person is not called upon and does not get the hours for which they made themselves available. I think that is a pretty serious issue, because the term "casual work" is not defined in the Bill. Different people may have different ideas of what does or does not constitute casual work. We have no way of knowing how the term "casual work" is going to be interpreted. If it is interpreted narrowly, that is fine. If it is interpreted broadly, it will dismantle a good deal of the protection which is provided for employees in that section.

Deputy Penrose proposed one possible solution on Committee Stage. It was ruled out of order, unfortunately, on the grounds that it might constitute a charge on the Exchequer. I am suggesting this amendment to the Minister as an alternative way to deal with the matter. We should draft regulations in which we try our very best to set out as exhaustively as possible those situations which can be designated as casual work. We probably will not be able to encompass everything, but I think we will take in the vast majority of situations because most people have a general idea of what does and does not constitute casual work. I am recommending to the Minister that she accept the amendment. That would oblige her to draw up the appropriate regulations, and it will prevent the possibility of the term "casual work", which as I say is not defined in the section, being used in a way that will be too broadly interpreted, thereby depriving people of compensation when they make themselves available for work which does not become available for them.

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