Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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233. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the cost of prohibiting zero-hour and low-hour contracts in the workplace regulatory regime. [46414/15]

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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Given the lack of uniformity around the definition of zero hour contracts and low hour contracts and the limitations of the data that exists in relation to such contracts, as highlighted in the recently published University of Limerick (UL) study, it is not possible to put a figure on the cost of prohibiting zero hour and low hour contracts in the existing regulatory regime.

I am currently engaged in a public consultation on the UL study. The consultation process, which commenced on 9th November, will run to 4th January 2016. My Department has published on its website a Consultation Document designed to assist interested parties in making a written submission in response to the study. In addition to seeking written submissions from all interested parties, I have met with employer representative bodies, worker representative bodies and non-Governmental organisations to hear their views first hand and to impress on them the importance of receiving their detailed and considered responses to the study, including, where relevant, costings in support of their responses.

It is important to point out that this is an independent study and the conclusions being drawn and the recommendations being made in the study are those of UL. Therefore, it is essential that the various stakeholders who contributed to the study and indeed other interested parties who may not have had an opportunity to engage with UL, are given an opportunity to consider and respond to the findings and recommendations in the UL report. This will allow me to be more fully informed before formulating my own views on the policy recommendations that I should bring to Government arising from the study.