LESS than 2 per cent of the work force is likely to be affected by legislation limiting the working week to 48 hours, the Minister of State for Labour Affairs, Ms Eithne Fitzgerald, has said.

The Minister said she was hopeful the Organisation of Working Time Bill, published yesterday, would become law next spring.

She described the Bill as "one of the most significant pieces of employment legislation to be published in modern times."

The Bill will limit the working week to an average of 48 hours net in other words excluding breaks. It will also phase in an increase in the minimum annual holiday entitlement, from three to four weeks, ban zero hour contracts along the lines of the Labour Court ruling in the Dunnes Stores dispute, improve the rights of Sunday and part time workers and make stipulations about daily and weekly minimum rest intervals.

We are no longer in the 19th century, Ms Fitzgerald said. "We don't send children down the mines and we don't expect workers to work excessive hours."

Under the legislation, working in excess of 48 hours per week net becomes illegal and directors, managers or secretaries deemed to have "connived" in the offence could be fined.

The number of hours worked is calculated as an average over four months save for certain listed sectors, where the averaging period is six months.

Companies can, by getting a "collective agreement" with their employees, increase the averaging period to 12 months.

Companies which do not have employee representative structures through which a collective agreement can be organised will have to create such structures, Ms Fitzgerald said.

The agreements must be registered with the Labour Court.

Collective bargaining and social partnership must not be replaced by individual negotiation of working conditions, the Minister said.

She repeated her view that an voluntary opt out clause for workers, available under the EU directive which the Bill is designed to implement, would be used by "unscrupulous" employers to put pressure on employees.

The opt out clause is not included in the published Bill.

"In a country with 180,000 people out of work, we need to look at a system where some people are being asked to work excessive hours and others are offered no work at all."

It is thought likely that Britain will be the only EU member state to include the opt out clause.

Sectors excluded from the Bill, such as work at sea, transport work and doctors in training, are the subject of new working time rules which are being worked on in Brussels.

Ms Fitzgerald said she had built a substantial degree of flexibility into the Bill, and rejected claims by the employers' organisation, IBEC, that the Bill, if unchanged, would damage the competitiveness of Irish companies.

IBEC has accused the Government of "missing a vital opportu$nity to protect the competitiveness of Irish companies.

Social Affairs executive with IBEC Ms Aileen O'Donoghue said Ms Fitgerald's Bill would put Irish companies at a competitive disadvantage against their British counterparts.

Fianna Fail is to press that the opt out clause be inserted into the Bill during its passage through the Oireachtas.

The director of the Small Firms Association, Mr Brendan Butler, said the approach taken by Ms Fitzgerald "is nothing short of scandalous".

He said his association would "carefully consider" its participation in the discussions on a new national programme, if the Bill is passed unchanged.

The Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association said it "does not understand why Minister Fitzgerald is attempting to limit workers' earnings".

ICTU, in a statement, welcomed the Bill which, it said, would stop workers being forced to work long hours without adequate rest.

It rejected claims that the legislation could damage competitiveness and said the curtailment of "continuous lengthy hours of working" had the potential to create thousands of jobs.