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Business groups have voiced their oppostition today to a proposed bill on temporary workers, which would give them the same benefits as other employees.

Trade unions are seeking changes to legislation governing agency workers supplied through employment agencies.

The Bill proposes that workers who are with a company for more than six weeks would be entitled to the same benefits as employees of the firm.

ISME, which represents outlined its opposition to the changes at a Joint Oireachtas Committee on Small Business & Enterprise, calling the bill "unwarranted, unworkable and unwelcome."

The organisation said that the Bill would introduce more costs and another layer of bureaucracy that would not benefit business and would also be to the detriment of agency workers.

“This provision, if approved, will effectively mean that companies must undertake a detailed job analysis on any agency worker it proposes to keep in excess of six weeks, despite that fact that the agency worker is not an employee of the company and was never envisaged to be one," said ISME chief executive, Mark Fielding.