Precarious work and if-and-when contracts are a problem for many workers in this State. They create uncertainty in terms of pay and how many hours a worker will work from week to week. They lead to exploitation in the workplace, a hollowing out of workers' rights and deep anxiety and stress for the workers involved. We know, and the Minister knows from his previous brief, that many of these workers actually work 30 hours per week for years and yet are left on low-hour 15-hour contracts. This has an impact on access to social welfare payments and the ability of these workers to get a mortgage and provide for their families.

They are workers who do get up early in the morning but they do so with uncertainty hanging over their heads. On Monday the Mandate trade union launched a "Secure Hours - Better Future" charter. Is the Minister aware of that charter? Mandate has called on all Deputies to sign it. Will the Minister, Deputy Bruton, and other Ministers sign the charter? Yesterday the Taoiseach accused my party of playing politics with people's misery and of not being solution-focused. The Minister knows that is absolute nonsense. It is a desperate attempt by the Taoiseach to avoid responsibility for problems created by the Government.

Let us look at the issue. Last July I brought forward a Bill to address the issue of if-and-when contracts and to bring about fairness. The essence of the Bill was to ensure that a worker's contract reflects the hours he or she actually works. These are workers in the hospitality, retail and other sectors. The Bill was an earnest attempt to provide a solution. What was the response of the Government? It was to oppose the Bill and pretend the problem does not exist. However, the Bill passed and was fully scrutinised by the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. The committee spent 13 hours over six sessions hearing from 44 witnesses. In the end, it produced a report that made 23 amendments and recommendations. What was the Government's response? It was to produce a Bill of its own. The Bill is woefully inadequate. It will not ban zero-hour contracts; the bands are too broad; and the look-back period is too long.

Does the Minister accept the report from the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and the amendments it suggested? I do and I will support it. Will the Minister ensure once and for all that exploitation in the workplace in terms of if-and-when contracts becomes a thing of the past? Will he support the Sinn Féin Bill? Will the Minister, Deputy Bruton, and his fellow Ministers and Deputies from his party sign the Mandate charter for secure hours and a better future for workers?

I roundly reject the suggestion that we are pretending the problem does not exist. It was our Government - the former Minister of State, now Senator Ged Nash, and I - who commissioned the work by the University of Limerick on zero-hour contracts. It was on the back of that work that we held consultations with the trade union movement and employers to ensure we can bring forward legislation. The heads of that Bill have already been announced and we are moving into the proper legislative phase. As a result of the recovery in the economy, we have seen a very considerable reduction in involuntary part-time working, which was a very serious problem but is thankfully reducing. We are seeing progress in this. We are seeing fewer self-employed contracts being put in place. We want to make sure we protect precarious workers and we will bring forward legislation in this area. We also will bring forward protections for people who are in self-employed situations. Many people entered into self-employment in the course of the recession but not out of choice. We will introduce new protections for such people, including protection of an invalidity pension, access to treatment benefit and access to paternity leave. It is clear the Government is keen to extend further protections both to those who are in precarious work under employers and to those who find themselves in self-employed positions. We want to make sure that hard work is rewarded and that people are protected. We want to see improvement in living standards. I recognise, like others, that the gig economy and those changes that are taking place in our economic framework call for better protections both from a social insurance perspective and in respect of employment law. I was part of a Government that brought in significant improvements to protect temporary agency workers, to improve the minimum wage and to protect people in situations where the courts had struck down the registered employment agreements. We have refurbished employment law in order that workers can be protected. I recognise this is an area on which the Government must move. It was our Government - I acknowledge Senator Ged Nash's role in this - that took the initiative to put us in a position to implement legislation now.

It is no surprise that the Minister has not answered my questions at all. The Minister mentioned the University of Limerick study. The Bill the Government is proposing is not in line with that report and its recommendations. That report committed to a six-month look-back whereby the hours in a person's contract would reflect the hours they work over a six-month period. The Government is looking at an 18-month period. The bands the Government suggests are also so broad as to make the Bill almost insignificant. The Government is not dealing with the problem at all. To my astonishment, the Minister says that bogus self-employment is not an issue. A report from a reporter in RTÉ says it is even an issue in RTÉ. It is rampant across many sectors. The Minister's head is in the sand. The question I asked the Minister is whether he will sign Mandate's pledge and charter to ensure we have secure hours. I am afraid if the Government's Bill passes, it will not be any comfort to those workers who are being exploited. There is already a Bill. We will debate it tonight in the context of a report that comes from a sectoral committee. Why not do that? Why not support, progress and implement that Bill and ensure workers have full protection and not partial protection, which is what the Minister and his Government want to provide.

It is the responsibility of Government to bring in legislation that is practical and which can be applied and is feasible for all concerned. That is what we are doing. Our legislation will ban zero-hour contracts. It will introduce protection for people who are on short-hour contracts and give them recognition for the fact they often work longer periods than are specified in their contracts. This will allow people to get recognition for those longer hours so when they are going to get mortgages, as the Deputy rightly says, they have a contract that reflects the actuality of the hours they work.

Eighteen months is too long.

We are also ensuring there will be a system of banded hours.

They are too broad.

Mandate or any other group can put forward possible amendments to the committee that will be considering that legislation.

It represents those workers.

It is for the House-----

It represents those workers.

-----to consider-----

The Deputy should allow the Minister to answer.

The way in which we legislate is not by signing the requests of various outside bodies. We are elected to represent people. We come here-----

The Government is representing IBEC.

-----and we make the decisions on the merits of the case as put forward. The merits of a case put forward by Mandate will be examined by the House when the Bill is presented to the House for debate and adopted.