John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Government first sought a look-back period of 18 months and it then moved to 13 months before it was forced to agree a 12-month period. That is Sinn Féin's compromise position as my colleague, Deputy Cullinane, brought forward legislation a couple of years ago in which he sought a six-month look-back period in line with the study carried out by the University of Limerick. One of its key recommendations was a six-month look-back period.

Members may be aware there was a cross-party committee hearing on Deputy Cullinane's Bill and it produced a cross-party recommendation for 12 months. One of the main reasons put forward for a 13-month period by the Government and others concerned unfair dismissals legislation, as an employee had to be in place for 12 months in such cases. I argued successfully that 12 months was sufficient as once a worker has been employed for 12 months and a day, the unfair dismissals legislation would apply. I am not happy with the 12-month period with respect to unfair dismissal and it must be brought back but that is another day's work and we cannot change that here because it is not in this legislation. Ultimately, it will need to be considered.

In an ideal scenario I would like to see this set at six months but there is a compromise position at 12 months that involved a big row-back from the Government's initial position of 18 months. A six-month period was in the Sinn Féin Bill brought forward by Deputy Cullinane, who successfully focused the debate on the need to put legislation in place to ban zero-hour and if-and-when contracts. It ultimately led us to this debate today. We know the red tape that was put in place in the form of issuing money messages in the process of debating that legislation. We have moved on our position but if the six-month provision is to be pushed, we will certainly not have any difficulties with that. There is an agreed position of 12 months as it stands.

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