Ray Butler (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I believe this is the first time I have spoken in the House with her present since the budget. I thank her for what she did for the self-employed in the budget. In the middle of next year for the first time the 400,000 self-employed people will get social protection recognition through jobseeker's payments.

The Bill provides that employers must give employees five core terms of employment within five days of commencement of employment. Employers who have not provided this statement after one month will be open to prosecution. This is a new offence. It will also be an offence for an employer to deliberately misrepresent the information required in the statement of the five core terms.

The Bill prohibits zero-hour contracts in most circumstances, except in situations of genuine casual employment and where they are essential to allow employers to provide cover in emergency situations or to cover short-term absence. All employees, including people on if-and-when contracts will benefit from the balance of measures proposed in the Bill.

The Bill provides for a new minimum payment for low-paid workers who may be called into work but sent home again without the promised work or any meaningful compensation. The focus here is on low-paid employees. The Bill provides for a new minimum compensation payment of three times the national minimum wage hourly rate or three times the hourly rate set out in an employment regulation order, ERO. Traditionally EROs have operated in low-wage sectors. Currently, EROs are in place for the contract cleaning and security industries, providing for minimum hourly rates of pay of €10.40, which will rise to €10.80 from 1 December 2018, and €11.35 respectively. The provision applies to low-paid workers to ensure it is focused on those most in need of stronger protections in this area. The provision will also act as a deterrent against the unscrupulous practice of employers calling into work, for example, ten people where there is only work for five people and the first five to show up get the work.

The Bill introduces a right for employees whose contract of employment does not reflect the reality of the hours they habitually work. This creates difficulties for employees in accessing credit, including mortgages. Under the Bill, such employees will be entitled to be placed in a band of hours that better reflects the hours they worked over a 12-month reference period. The banded hours provisions will significantly improve the predictability and security of working hours for employees, so that they can better plan and get on with their lives outside of work.

The Bill provides strong anti-penalisation provisions for employees who invoke their rights under this legislation. This is a key element of the Bill for workers in less secure employment who may be afraid to exercise their rights.

There has been much talk about bogus self-employed people. I am delighted that section 20 has been removed from the Bill and that the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection will commence hearings on the matters. I have seen this at first hand. During the recession many bogus self-employed people in the courier business, through no fault of their own, when things were going well were given big fancy vehicles to drive around.The terms of employment were that one was made self-employed. When things were going well, these people made a living for themselves. When the crash came, they were bogus self-employed and they were entitled to nothing. What families had to go through to try to get social protection payments was horrendous. In certain cases, it took 12 to 18 months before a payment came through. I welcome that we are going to look at this through the Joint Committee on Employment Affairs and Social Protection and that we will bring in stronger legislation in this area. I congratulate the Minister on this Bill and look forward to bringing it further in this House.