Boyd Barrett, Richard

Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017: Second Stage (Resumed)

Precarious employment is an extremely important issue and the Government's move in the direction of addressing it is long overdue. Precarious employment is a plague affecting large numbers of work...

Precarious employment has serious impacts on family life and workers' ability to plan and have a life because they do not know how many hours they will work or how much they will earn. For examp...

To put some perspective on the claims of economic recovery and the often trumpeted figures about employment, for which the Government slaps itself on the back, despite the increase in employment ...

It is worth noting the deterioration in the quality of life for workers in precarious employments when compared with the conditions enjoyed by previous generations of workers who could expect to ...

It is not the case that we all felt the same pain in the past ten years. With the exception of 2008, employers have been doing better under austerity. The economic collapse worked for employers...

On the face of it, the Bill attempts to address some aspects of precarious employment. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions sent a letter to the Minister after it published a document on precariou...

Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017: Second Stage (Resumed) (Continued)

On the face of it, the Government has responded to the lobbying of the trade union movement but in looking at the detail, we can see the Government has diluted the propositions to the point where t...

We can give some examples of how the Government has diluted the proposals. The bands proposed by the Government in the Bill are so wide as to give enormous flexibility to employers to continue i...

If a person is trying to plan life around kids, family and time off, having to do everything people have to do, with the variation in a working pattern up to 13 hours in a week, it can have a hug...

There are similar concerns with the compensation for workers called in who do not receive work. The University of Limerick, which did the study that is supposed to inform this legislation, propo...

The provision of contracts and statements of terms and conditions within five days is an improvement but there is a big problem that is fundamental to this Bill. Workers' rights and employment l...

I know this because an Irish person employed as a foreman on that site complained about the underpayment of these workers and the fact that many workers, including himself, were not getting paysl...

He complained to the employer. That is the problem. Unless there will be a very proactive move by the authorities, with inspections and raids happening on a much greater level, all the legislatio...

The final demand of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, is not included in the legislation. I have raised it, along with many others here, time and again. It is bogus self-employment, whi...

It is very obviously the case that these workers are not entrepreneurs. The numbers of supposed entrepreneurs in construction are ridiculous, with the latest figures at approximately 60,000 from...

We will support the passage of the Bill because anything is better than nothing but I do not believe the suggestion that it will substantially address the plague of precarious employment which is...

We will seek to amend the Bill and I suspect many others will too. I welcome that we are at least debating it but we have to go a hell of a lot further than this if we are to address the problem.

In my last 43 seconds, I will raise one other matter about the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, which is the appeals process. Take, for example, the Rhatigan dispute where...

It was a kangaroo court. Rhatigan came in lawyered up-----

That is the report I got from workers.

We will debate it again but that is the report I got from the workers.

What if they are vulnerable workers who are afraid?

Services for People with Disabilities

Asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport: the way in which he plans to vindicate the rights of persons with disabilities using public transport in view of the imminent ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabil...

Harbour Authorities

Asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport: the communications he has had with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and-or Dún Laoghaire harbour with regard to the implementation of the Harbours Act 2015 and the transfer of ownership; and i...

Departmental Communications

Asked the Minister for Finance: his plans to ensure that a landline telephone number is supplied along with 1850 or 1890 telephone numbers by his Department including all Revenue departments (details supplied); and if he will mak...

Asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment: his plans to ensure that a landline telephone number is supplied along with 1850 or 1890 telephone numbers by all Departments including all State and semi-State bodies; and if he will make a statem...