Ms Sarah Benson:

I thank the Chair and bid good afternoon to members. I am delighted to have the opportunity to represent Women’s Aid before the committee. Women's Aid endorses the introduction of paid domestic violence leave in Ireland as a vital support for survivors, and welcomes the opportunity to make this statement to the joint committee regarding the domestic violence leave Bill.

Economic independence from an abusive partner is essential for women experiencing domestic abuse and employment is a key element of financial independence. Women’s Aid believes that paid domestic violence leave can play an important role in supporting abused women to remain in employment and therefore expand their agency and choices. We warmly welcome this Bill and its proposed vehicle primarily being through amendments to the Organisation of Working Time Act.

At least one in four women in Ireland have been subjected to some form of abuse from a current or former partner. A 2014 survey carried out by the Trades Union Congress in the UK and the Republic of Ireland found that domestic violence affects performance and attendance at work. Of those who experienced domestic violence, over 40% said the abuse affected their ability to get to work and 57% said they had to take time off work because of the abuse.

Paid domestic violence leave is used in other jurisdictions for survivors to be able to attend to important and urgent matters related to domestic violence which cannot be dealt with after hours or which require immediate attention. This could be because these activities are at a specific time that cannot be changed, such as court proceedings, because they are not open after hours or because it is safer for the survivor to attend while the perpetrator thinks he or she is at work. Domestic violence leave should include activities that are not already covered by other forms of leave such as sick leave or force majeure.

The introduction of paid domestic violence leave through this Bill potentially offers survivors a number of important benefits including retaining employment and financial independence, reducing the risk of poverty, enhancing safety, repositioning responsibility to the external factor of the abuser, supporting dignity in the workplace and offering a potential opportunity to be informed in work about specialist support services that might help.

Our concerns with any such legislation are that there should not be excessive barriers to paid leave for domestic violence being requested or granted, including employers requiring high levels of proof of domestic violence, such as accepting only police reports or court orders; a lack of awareness of paid leave being an option; fear that confidentiality will not be maintained; and stigma and shame. Ideally, all employers should introduce domestic abuse policies and procedures to create a clear, consistent and transparent context for responding to employees suffering abuse and employees perpetrating abuse.

There should not be an emphasis on requiring proof for employees to avail of this leave. We advocate an approach based on trust and collaboration. Our position is that this will be sufficient given the low likelihood of an employee unnecessarily disclosing an experience of domestic abuse for anything but authentic reasons. This issue carries with it stigma and shame which any statutory measures ought to try to mitigate and not exacerbate by requiring proof of abuse.

While employees should be required to give advance notice of leave when possible, there may be emergency situations when it is not and this should be allowed for. It therefore needs to be treated in a similar fashion to force majeure, whereby it can be applied at short notice or retrospectively. In our reading of the proposed new section 23D, the Bill appears to accommodate circumstances where leave cannot be prearranged. We welcome the fact that no requirement for evidence is stipulated, which is extremely important to ensure the leave is fit for purpose.

We note reference to employees giving notification of domestic violence leave "in the prescribed form". Guidance as to what the "prescribed form" for requesting this leave should and should not be would be useful to ensure employers do not seek to invoke unnecessary and intrusive barriers to employees who may need to avail of this leave.

Women's Aid believes the leave should be a minimum of ten days per rolling 12-month period, which is stipulated in the Bill. This should not be reduced. In certain cases, ten days may not be enough and additional unpaid leave may be necessary.

We recommend consideration of a process for additional leave to cover exceptional circumstances. Ideally, this should be additional paid leave but at a minimum, it should be some unpaid leave provision that could work similarly to maternity leave provisions.

A key consideration in regards to domestic violence leave is confidentiality. Records of domestic violence leave must be confidential and only shared on a need-to-know basis. Under section 23D(4) of the Bill, employers are to maintain confidentiality regarding domestic violence leave and it is an offence not to do so. There are exceptions to this including disclosing information to "employees or agents of the employer who require the information to carry out their duties". This may be sufficient for the legislation but for successful implementation, it may benefit from some more guidance to assist employers in developing a policy that will be clear on what these exceptions may and may not be. Additionally, if there is a dispute about domestic violence leave in the Labour Court, there is no requirement that this would be in cameraand these can be in public. We note that this was previously discussed in the committee and we simply refer again to this possibly requiring some further attention.

As stated at the outset, Women's Aid supports this legislation. We welcome this Bill in particular as one that has undergone extensive development, consultation and consideration of similar practices in other jurisdictions. Many good employers in Ireland have already taken or commenced steps to create a supportive initiative for employees subjected to domestic abuse as they see it as a complete win-win to be a good employer and to boost productivity and staff retention in a way that empowers those most in need. Women's Aid is currently actively collaborating in this work with a range of such employers, as are some of the unions.

I acknowledge that in early 2021, the Minister commenced an additional consultation process on a statutory leave to which we duly made a submission. This was mooted as a process after which it was expected that legislation for domestic violence leave would be produced. We expected the findings of the submissions process and any recommendations to have been published in late 2021 and early 2022 but this has not yet happened. At the same time, the Minister has alluded to some other - possibly as yet undrafted - legislative vehicle for domestic violence leave. Women's Aid is deeply concerned that the opportunity to enact this critically important law should not be delayed. It should not be hitched to other legislation, which may be seeking to achieve other tangentially related ends. This Bill, which appears on the face of it to have cross-party support - why would it not? - should be the legislation that the Government supports as it cannot wait.

We have met employers, employer groups, unions and, of course, many survivors who see the huge value of this with a limited actual cost. We hope that the work by this committee can produce a cross-party endorsement for this Bill without delay or deflection. I again thank the committee again for the opportunity to submit our views on this important legislation. I am very happy to respond to any questions the committee may have.