Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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462. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the steps her Department is taking to explore and discuss the practical issues proposed in the Banded Hours Contract Bill 2016. [32525/16]

Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be aware from the debate on the Banded Hours Contract Bill 2016 in July that the Government opposed this Bill for several reasons.

Firstly, I and my colleague, Minister Mitchell O’Connor, intend bringing forward proposals in this area for consideration by Government. In this respect, work is well advanced on developing a policy response to the University of Limerick (UL) study on zero hour contracts and low hour contracts. The policy response is being informed by the UL study itself and also the extensive material and practical examples provided by respondents to the public consultation conducted by my Department. The policy response will address the issue of workers on low hour contracts who consistently work more hours each week but whose contracts do not reflect the reality of their hours. The proposals will also seek to ensure that workers are better informed about the nature of their employment arrangements and their core terms and conditions at an early stage in their employment. Furthermore the proposals will include provisions aimed particularly at low paid, more vulnerable workers. My Department is currently engaged in a dialog process with ICTU and Ibec to secure broad agreement before proposals are finalised.

The Government also opposed the Banded Hours Contracts Bill 2016 because it is fundamentally flawed and inappropriate, lacks balance and will not work in practice. For example, instead of focussing on the issue of low paid vulnerable workers, the Bill requires that all workers in every sector of the economy be given additional hours on request unless the employer can prove they are in “severe financial difficulties”. The Bill does not provide a basis for addressing issues relating to the protection of low paid vulnerable workers.