Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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1269. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the actions taken and progress made on each of the 14 recommendations in the University of Limerick study on the prevalence of zero-hour contracts; her plans to bring legislation on casual work to Cabinet; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [46944/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I would point out that the Deputy is referring to a report which was commissioned by the previous Government.

In May of this year the Government approved the drafting of legislation in response to the commitment in the current Programme for Government to address problems caused by the increased casualisation of work and to strengthen the regulation of precarious work.

The proposed legislation will address a number of issues which have been identified as being areas where current employment rights legislation can be strengthened without imposing unnecessarily onerous burdens on employers and businesses. The draft Bill has a particular focus on low-paid, more vulnerable workers.

The draft legislation takes account of the University of Limerick (UL) study on zero hour contracts and the extensive material and practical examples provided by respondents to the public consultation on the UL study, conducted by the former Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. Furthermore, the draft legislation has also been subject to a detailed dialogue process with ICTU and Ibec over a period of several months.

The drafting of the Bill is at an advanced stage and it is my intention to publish the Bill before the end of the year, subject to Government approval.