Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister and I am glad to see this important legislation will progress. We will all put our backs behind it to make sure it is accelerated and becomes law. I am aware that the Minister reviewed a number of aspects of the Bill as passed by the Dáil. Has she re-examined the various arguments made in the Dáil by Labour Party Deputies and colleagues in the other parties to deal with if-and-when contracts? If these rotten arrangements are not dealt with, they will become the weapon of choice for bad employers and that is the worry, even though there are thousands of good employers who work well with their employees.

There are elements of the proposed legislation that are welcome and many of them were drawn from the proposals of my colleague, Senator Ged Nash, which he put forward to the Government in late 2015. It seems that for most workers trapped on if-and-when contracts, their work will continue to be treated as casual. This will deny them access to important provisions because they will not be classified as employees in the first place. For example, if-and-when workers will not be able to request to be placed on an appropriate band of hours to better reflect the reality of the hours they work, as other workers can. Has the Minister given any thought to that?

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