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

I want to back up what Deputy Clare Daly said. There is a contradiction here. Recent statistics show that more than half of part-time workers in employment are living in poverty. Part of the reason for that is low pay but also precarious hours and part-time work itself. Say someone is in a job in Tesco - I know it pretty well because I shop in its Ballyfermot store and we supported the pickets around the country recently - and extra hours become available for some reason, for example, there might be a busy period or the World Cup is on, if those hours are not offered to the part-time worker and a new employee is taken on instead and the hours are given to him or her, it penalises the person who is already at work and who needs the extra hours to exist.

There is another thing that the Minister for Employment and Social Protection must consider on top of everything Deputy Daly said. During the last Dáil, while Deputy Joan Burton was Minister, this State told lone parents that their lone parent allowance would be affected when their children reached seven years of age and the parents would have to go out and seek work. This was portrayed as a positive initiative to get people into the workplace rather than seeing themselves dependent on social welfare in the long term. As the hours they work are reflected in the payments they get, then they need more hours. Many of them need more hours in work to sustain themselves. What is happening is that lone parents are on a certain number of hours, but extra hours are being offered to new workers who come in rather than increasing the existing workers and as a result they become more dependent on the Minister's Department. The same is true of things such as family income supplement, FIS, payments for workers who need a subsidy from the State because they are being paid so little. The Minister might be cutting off her nose to spite her face by not supporting this amendment which does two things. It protects workers and undermines the ability and the willingness of employers to penalise workers whose face does not fit or who are too bold because they have joined a union, taken action or spoke up for themselves. That can be used to penalise them. Unless one is in a good unionised job, we have all seen how employers can overlook people who should be next in line when they offer extra hours. The original amendment offered a protection for employees. The Minister thinks that it is a bit hard on employers. That is why IBEC probably lobbied the Minister to remove it, arguing that it wanted to be much more flexible. I am sure that the Minister will respond to my accusation that she was lobbied by IBEC to introduce this amendment.

The original amendment goes to the heart of the spirit of what this Bill is about. If the Minister removes it, she will be tearing the guts out of the Bill. I plead with her not to remove it and with the other Deputies to vote to retain the original amendment.

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