THE new law imposing an average net 48-hour working week will have no effect on the competitiveness of Irish companies, the Minister of State for Labour Affairs, Ms Eithne Fitzgerald, said yesterday.

Ms Fitzgerald was addressing the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Small Business and Services, which held a special meeting to discuss the Organisation of Working Time Bill.

Spokesmen on behalf of the employer organisations - the Irish Business Employers' Confederation (IBEC), the Small Firms Association (SFA) and the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME) - addressed the meeting and spoke against the Bill.

Representatives of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) spoke in favour of the measure.

Two employers, both of whom ran small businesses, also spoke. They said the Bill, if enacted, would create serious difficulties for them.

Payments of the equivalent of two years' pay, by the employer to the employee, could be ordered in cases where infringements of the law were found, Ms Fitzgerald told the committee.

She said the new law would allow companies accommodate periods of intense work. "The only issue at stake is having a long working week all the year around," the Minister said.

The systematic working by employees of more than 48 hours all through the year did not confer any competitive advantage to the employees' company.

"I actually don't think that there is any competitive argument there at all," Ms Fitzgerald said.

"Under the Bill, the 48-hour week is calculated after meal breaks are taken into account. It will still be possible to work eight hours a day, six days a week, all the year around."

Asked about the needs of the security industry, the Minister said she was "very strongly" of the view that no-one should have to work long hours all the year around in order to earn a decent wage.

Ms Fitzgerald said the EU directive which the Bill is designed to introduce into Irish law "comes into effect" this Saturday. The Bill will become law once it has finished its passage through the Oireachtas, which will probably take "a couple of months".

Responding to committee chairman Mr Michael Creed TD, who asked if an employee could take a case" after next Saturday, Ms Fitzgerald said that after next Saturday an employee could "take the State to the European Court".

On the policing of the legislation, Ms Fitzgerald said that individuals, trade unions and the Department of Enterprise and Employment could take cases against employers who were in contravention of the law.

Mr Seamus Dolan, who employs 38 people in his shop fillings company, said he "might be better off moving my business to Holyhead" if the legislation was introduced. His company was successful because it was flexible and the new law would affect that flexibility.

Mr Bill Brown, who employs 50 people in his security firm, said the Bill, if enacted, "will make my job impossible. Twenty per cent of my staff will leave if the Bill becomes law".

Mr Brendan Butler, the director of the SFA, said it was not true that the new law would create jobs. Small firms, which had been planning to expand, were now putting those plans on hold.

The director of IBEC, Mr Turlough Sullivan, said Ms Fitzgerald was introducing a "narrow" interpretation of the EU directive into Irish law. Britain would introduce a "generous" view and this would put Irish business at a competitive disadvantage.

The chairman of ISME, Mr Don Curry, said the Bill would restrict the earning potential of employees. "It restricts and limits democratic freedoms."

Mr Tom Wall, an industrial officer with the ICTU, said representative groups which were calling for a voluntary opt-out clause to be introduced into the Bill were seeking to weaken and undermine collective bargaining structures.

Ms Paula Carey, a research and information officer with the ICTU, said "sweatshop" conditions were a growing problem, particularly in the retail and catering sectors. Conditions in the catering sector were "widely negotiated and widely unenforced to reporters after the meeting, Ms Fitzgerald said that from Saturday there was a "theoretical" possibility that an employee could take a case against the State for its failure to implement the directive. However, this would be "very much on the outside" and the State could argue that it was actively going about introducing the measure.

To date two member-states, Germany and The Netherlands, have given effect to the directive.