Employment Rights
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-05
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

The Minister of State is satisfied that strong protections already exist. He should look at the evidence. Unite carried out a survey. Is the Minister of State satisfied about the 48% of workers who went to work during Storm Éowyn who said they did not feel safe? Is he satisfied that 53% of those who worked outdoors during the storm felt their employer had not taken all reasonable precautions to make their work safe? These are unionised workers. That means it will be a lot worse for non-unionised workers. If the Government does not give people legal protections, it is leaving them prey for their employers to put pressure on them to make them work in unsafe conditions. We need a legal obligation on employers to have graduated alert-based responses. We need a legal requirement that, where work is required to cease, workers are paid as usual. We need paid climate leave, maximum temperatures at work and recognition of temperature-related illness as occupational disease.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-05/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:36+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-05