Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My points related to the GDPR aspect of it. The collection of data such as these would be very well done by a body such as IBEC or the Department on a collective where there is pseudonymisation and where people cannot be identified. The proportion of part-time employees in many employments is considerably lower than the proportion of full-time employees, so there is a possibility of identification.

The other side to it is that, albeit not perfect as a protection, we have the Protection of Employees (Part-Time Work) Act 2001. It does not allow, in the case of comparable employees, between part-time employees and full-time employees, for part-time employees to be discriminated against. It provides a means by which you can make an application, as a comparable employee, for the terms and conditions of employment to be revised. While it is not perfect and allows for objective justification, at the same time there is a mechanism built into employment law already for there to be redress where there is disparity and that disparity is known. Many of the contractors and the cleaning contractors I have encountered would be in the context of temporary agency workers who are assigned or row in, and as long as they are not under a Swedish derogation type model, which would be the exception, they also have comparable rights to a directly employed employee. There are certainly other things under the umbrella of employment law. Do we need to educate about that? Yes, we do, to make sure information is available through citizens' advice or otherwise, so people know these all interlink with each other.There are other means of identification and creating surveys that do not allow for the particular information of individuals to get in the public domain or be easily identified or profiled in their jobs. In EU-derived protection of employees legislation and existing employment law there are protections that would target exactly what is being intended in the amendments. Therefore, I do not feel they are necessary. GDPR is not an issue in big companies but there are smaller companies for which it would cause an issue. This way it would be unwise and, therefore, I agree with the Minister.