Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I cannot assure the Minister that I will be brief and I hope that she and the Cathaoirleach will indulge me. I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this very important debate. I welcome the Minister and her officials who have worked very hard over many years to get to this point. In fairness, I also wish to give the Minister her due credit for sticking with this project. I wondered at times if we would ever get to this point, but we did, and it looks as though there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I thank the Minister for her kind words earlier. Four years ago, I was involved in appointing Dr. Michelle O’Sullivan and her team in the University of Limerick to undertake a study on the prevalence and impact of zero and low-hour contracts in Ireland. We asked that team to develop with us some recommendations as to how this policy area could be best addressed. This initiative was part of a broader, interconnected set of policy interventions that the last Government undertook designed to make work pay and to ensure that people were guaranteed a greater degree of dignity at work. These included the establishment of the Low Pay Commission; increases to the minimum wage, which, as the Minister rightly pointed out, is the second highest minimum wage in the European Union; the establishment of employment regulation orders; new sector employment orders; and, the institution of a new constitutionally robust system within which collective bargaining could take place. These changes positively impacted on around 250,000 or perhaps up to 300,000 workers and these workers continue to benefit from these measures. When we introduce good legal minimum standards and enforce them our economy and society does well. This floor of rights and decency benefits all of us. In the tentative and very early stages of our economic recovery, everyone’s focus was on getting people back to work. That was the ultimate objective for everyone. At the height of the economic catastrophe which we hit in this country, some half a million people were out of work. Back in 2011 or 2012 there were many people who might have left work on a Friday or closed the doors of their business on a Friday evening not knowing whether they would have a business or a job to go back to on Monday morning. That targeted focus that the previous Government had on job creation was never about job creation at any price, but about the creation of sustainable jobs where conditions were decent and where the pay rates would allow one not only to exist but to live.

Senator McDowell mentioned earlier how all around us we could see the growth of casual and atypical work. This was not a phenomenon that just grew out of the recession. We could see for many years that the traditional employment model was fraying around the edges. We all knew that some employers did not waste the opportunity presented to them by a good recession to drive down the pay and terms and conditions of workers. I have argued to death with economists about data and trends on casualisation of work in this country over the past 20 years or so. Some do not feel there is a particular problem and argue that the data have remained consistent over the years. That may be the case in relation to the headline figures but the composition has certainly changed and I dispute much of what economists say. Many say that casualisation is a reality as is atypical work but I can never accept that there should be a cohort of people who will be left behind, who would not get the same types of protections and supports that everyone should take for granted in a decent society. We should never be happy that there are people who form a subgroup or sub- cohort of our labour market who are in work environments which are permanently precarious.

People work hard for a living and, as the Minister has said time and again, they are entitled to certainty over their hours and security over their income.There is no doubt this Bill, which has wound its way through the Dáil over the past few months, reflects the bulk of the key recommendations made by the University of Limerick team three years ago. I will not go into the provisions of the Bill in any great detail other than to say I welcome them all. For me, probably the most critical reform is the one that allows the reality of somebody's working hours to be reflected in his or her working and contractual arrangements after a period of time. The reform will have an enormously positive impact in situations where workers find themselves with ten hour or 15 hour contracts but where their work pattern finds them routinely working for much longer.

As the Minister knows, and I have rehearsed these arguments time and again, I have a deep and genuine concern about one aspect of this that I believe has been neglected. The University of Limerick study, as emphasised by my colleague, Senator Higgins, identified the phenomena that we term if-and-when contracts. Since the report and its recommendations were launched in October 2015 I have sounded like a broken record, repeatedly reminding people about the importance of amending legislation to ensure workers on if-and-when contracts are protected. I know the Minister and her officials are convinced this legislation deals comprehensively with that issue but I have a different view. That is why we should take a belt and braces approach and amend the Bill to enable all workers, including those on if-and-when contracts, to have access to the excellent terms and protections contained in this legislation, without any exceptions. Senator Higgins and I would like to work with the Minister and her officials to see if some pragmatic arrangement could be made to reflect my concerns in the Bill and address those issues.

I will conclude by congratulating the Minister again on the work she has done and thank her for sticking with this project. It would have been easy to walk away from it and accept the views of some on the employers' side that there is nothing to see here or there is no problem. Thankfully, she stuck with this project. She has been true to her word and to the programme for Government.

Credit is due also to Senator Ardagh. Fianna Fáil, in its manifesto, assured us that it wanted this area covered in terms of any future government it may participate in or any future arrangement. There is a consensus in this House and across society that we should not have cohorts of workers who are simply left behind and that we should have a labour market model that is fair and respects people's rights at work and ensures that work pays. I want to work with the Minister over the next few weeks to make sure we get this legislation over the line because the best Christmas present we can give workers in precarious work in this country is the protections of this legislation, thus enabling them to have a decent quality of life and to be respected in the workplace.