Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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135. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the legislation regarding the number of hours a person can work per week in cases in which they have two different sources of employment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47937/22]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 transposed the original EU Working Time Directive (Directive 93/104/EC) – now consolidated by EU Directive 2003/88/EC – into Irish law. The EU Working Time Directive is primarily a health and safety directive and its purpose is to lay down common minimum safety and health requirements for organising the working time of employees in all EU Member States.

Article 6 of the EU Directive on Working Time provides for limits to working time of not more than 48 hours a week on average (including any overtime). The EU Directive provides that, when calculating limits to weekly working time, the hours worked may be averaged over a “reference period”. This allows longer hours to be worked in certain weeks, provided that correspondingly shorter hours are worked in other weeks.

Section 15 of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 transposes this EU Directive regarding working time. For most employees the reference period is four months. For night workers it is two months. For employees whose work is subject to seasonality (e.g. tourism or agriculture), or where employees are directly involved in ensuring continuity of essential services (e.g. hospitals, airports) or production (e.g. electricity), the reference period is six months. The 48-hour average week may be averaged over a period of up to 12 months for employees who have entered into a collective agreement with their employer if that collective agreement is approved by the Labour Court. Section 33 of the 1997 Act provides that an employer can employ an employee who has also worked for another employer but only where the aggregate of the periods for which such an employee does work for each of such employers respectively in that relevant period does not exceed the 48 hour total. Whenever the limit is breached the employer and employee shall each be guilty of an offence.

The 1997 Act also provides for an uninterrupted minimum daily rest period of 11 hours, and at least 35 hours of uninterrupted weekly rest. These rest requirements along with the 48 hour (maximum) working week act as a safeguard to ensure that employees do not work excessive hours.