Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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585. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the status of zero hour contracts in legislation; his plans for reform in this policy area; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15091/17]

Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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The Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 is the only Act that refers to zero hours practices in Irish employment rights legislation. Specifically, Section 18 of that Act, provides that employees with a certain number of hours (that number may be zero) as well as employees on an as-and-when contracts or hybrid contracts  are entitled to compensation if the employer does not require them to work in a given week when they required to be available for work. They are entitled to compensation amounting to 25% of the time they were required to be available or 15 hours pay, whichever is the lesser. 

It is important to the note that the University of Limerick study on the prevalence of zero hours contracts in Ireland found that zero hours contracts are not common in this jurisdiction.

My colleague, Minister Mitchell O'Connor, and I intend to bring forward proposals in this area for consideration by Government. In this respect, work has progressed well on developing a policy response to the Programme for Government commitment to address the increased casualisation of work and to strengthen the regulation of precarious employment.  We intend to include protections aimed particularly at low-paid, more vulnerable workers.  Our proposals will address the issue of employees on low hour contracts who consistently work more hours each week but whose contracts do not reflect the reality of their hours worked. The proposals will also seek to ensure that employees are better informed about the nature of their employment arrangements and their core terms at an early stage in their employment.

The policy response is being informed by the University of Limerick study on zero hour contracts and low hour contracts as well as the extensive material and practical examples provided by respondents to the public consultation conducted by my Department.

Developing policy proposals in this area is a complex matter. nA balance needs to be found between protecting the rights of employees and avoiding unintended consequences on business which may negatively affect the competitiveness of the Irish economy. 

My Department engaged in a detailed dialogue process with ICTU and Ibec over a number of months in developing the proposals. The intention now is to submit our proposals to Government in the coming weeks for consideration and approval to draft a Bill giving effect to those proposals.