Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Senator's opinion is not shared by her Dáil colleagues. They argued for exactly the opposite of what she is calling for with this amendment. The offence provision has made both employers and employees sit up and take notice of this Bill. Every single one of us has been lobbied by one or both sides so we have got their attention. We did this because of the sanctions in the Bill. The legislation to which the Senator referred, and which she said addressed the issues, has been there for years and it has obviously not addressed them. Now we have people's attention we are certainly not going to dilute the impression we have given.

The purpose of creating the offence provision was to promote better work practices so that employers can know what their responsibilities are to their employees. It is not that a contract of employment needs to be provided in five days. The requirement is for five simple pieces of information which one can write on the back of one's hand. Every person is entitled to know who they are working for, where they are working and how many hours they will be expected to work. It can be given on a piece of paper or an email or even imparted verbally.

If anybody who has difficult circumstances, such as a single employer with no HR department, can make a reasonable defence for not managing to provide the information within five days they have a month to do it. If the Senator had read the legislation she would know that the criminal offences do not kick in for months and months after we have given people the opportunity to fix what they had failed to do in five days.

We have got people's attention in the past couple of years since the legislation was mooted because of how seriously we take the disrespect some employers show their employees. On that basis I cannot support the Senator's amendment.