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

I am pleased to have an opportunity to respond to the question. First, it is unusual that when we average out the hours for where somebody would fall that it would be exactly on, for argument's sake, six hours, it is more likely when one averages out hours that somebody would have five and a half hours or six and a half hours so it would be clear and unambiguous. However, if it did fall on exactly six hours or 26 hours, as Senator Craughwell outlined, the way the legislation is drafted it is open to the employee to pick which band he or she wants to be in. For someone on six hours an employee could pick whether he or she would be in band A or band B. It is his or her choice. Someone on 26 hours can go in either band E or band F. The proposed legislation positively discriminates in favour of the employee as opposed to the employer.

I did not read out the full explanation of what the Attorney General said, but as Senator McDowell said on Second Stage, the way the Bill is currently drafted gave rise to the fact that as an employee one might need to seek legal advice because of the risk that one's employer could hoodwink one or try to confuse the issue. This might sound frivolous but he gave us some unintended consequences of the way it was written. For argument's sake, with the "or more" or "less than" if someone was on four hours on average one could conceivably argue that it is less than a 30-hour contract or ten hours is more than however many hours, but one would not argue the case in the other direction. It leaves the interpretation open to question. More often than not, my experience is that when legislation leaves something open to question it is usually the employee who suffers rather than the employer.Removing the "or more" and "less than" only means that in the event of a worker finding himself or herself on the exact number between two bands, he or she may pick the band that he or she prefers. Some people will choose the "more" band and some will choose the "less" band, but it is their choice.