Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Bill as initiated inserts a new subsection (3A) into section 6 of the principal Act to provide for workers who have had successive temporary contracts with the employer in the last six months to be deemed as having had a continuous period of service for the purpose of calculating the qualifying period. The amendment, as drafted, would appear to reduce the six-month or 26-week period to one week. Likewise, amendment No. 14 amends section 6, which inserts a new subsection (5) into the new section 13B in the principal Act to provide for a right to request a flexible working arrangement for caring purposes. Subsection (4) of the new section 13B provides that an employee's approved flexible working arrangements cannot commence until the employee concerned has completed six months of continuous employment with the employer from whose employment the leave is being taken.

Subsection (5) provides for workers on temporary contracts to have previous employment with the employer in the past six months deemed as a continuous period of service for the purposes of calculating the qualifying period. The proposed amendment, as drafted, would appear to reduce that six-month, 26-week period to one week. This would mean that only one previous employment in a week would qualify as continuous service for the purpose of calculating the qualifying period. Providing for a minimum length of service of six months before an employee can commence a flexible working arrangement allows an employer the time to assess the plausibility and practicalities of a request from a new employee. Obviously, an employer does not have to wait until the six-month period but some time is needed for an employer to be able to understand whether he or she can provide this flexible work to the employee. I would argue that just one week is not enough time for that judgment to be made.

It is also important to recognise that the entitlement to many forms of family leave require a minimum period of employment with an employer. For parental leave and carer's leave, for example, the minimum period before a person can claim those is one year. The new statutory sick leave requires a period of 13 weeks' continuous service. The directive itself allows for and envisages a notice period for people requiring flexible working arrangements. I will not be advising that the committee accepts these amendments.