Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is not a massive amount of difference between the Minister of State and me on this. However, the Mandate survey is for unionised workers. As everybody knows, the best bet you have for getting a decent rate of pay is to join your union and be active in it. These are unionised workers. Again, the WRC very often sees unionised workers. If it is bad for workers who are unionised and who are engaged with their union, we can only imagine what it is like for workers who do not have that collective voice to speak up for them at work. It is fair to say that the sector is over-represented in terms of low pay. It is not so much the low pay, but the way the hours are used. Anyone who has ever worked in shift work on an hourly rate will know that even with the banded hours, one week you might be at top of the band and the next week you are down. You cannot plan when you are trying to live like that. Now is the time. When the legislation was debated a commitment was given that this issue of the hours being distributed would be looked at. I welcome that that is now being done.

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