Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The purpose of this instruction is to allow the Minister to extend the scope of the existing provisions of the Bill. An increasing trend of the Government is to bring forward new and substantial amendments to Bills going through the Houses unrelated to the original purpose of the proposed legislation. It is not good practice and it hinders our ability to scrutinise legislation. It was used extensively on the Electoral Reform Act earlier this year. This week we have also seen a similar approach to the Patient Safety (Notifiable Patient Safety Incidents) Bill 2019 and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage is ramming through a planning Bill this week and next. In effect, the Government and the permanent Civil Service are regularly using Standing Order 187 to undermine the legislative process and turn the House into a rubber stamp. According to the motion, the Minister will make a series of legislative changes related to the Adoption Authority of Ireland, AAI, and Tusla. A further series of substantial amendments to the right to request remote work are not mentioned in the motion so while the Bill is recommitted for what we might term "a mini-Second Stage debate on specified grounds", it does not include the right to request remote work. By tabling these unscrutinised amendments on Report Stage, the Government has bypassed Second and Committee Stages, therefore, depriving Deputies of the opportunity to address in detail the impact of these proposals. It robs us of time to table substantial amendments to new proposals in this House, which are changed from the original draft law published in January.

The Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment has published its scrutiny of the original Right to Request Remote Work Bill 2021 in July. It is only now in December that a new Bill is in effect being parachuted into this one and it differs from the original proposals in many ways. Since the start of the year we have called for a right to flexible work for all workers. The Labour Party published its own legislation and tabled a motion in the House in our Private Members' time in March where we called for flexible work to be the default option rather than giving employers the right to refuse requests. Results of an Ireland Thinks poll commissioned by the Labour Party showed an overwhelming demand from workers for this right. Some 71% of people believe in the right to flexible work; instead we are getting a right to request it. To take one example, according to the Minister's amendment, someone still must be an employee for six months before they can request a remote working arrangement. It is a key recommendation of the committee that this be removed and that there should be an automatic right to request. Our motion which passed this House in spring called on the Government to ensure its legislative proposals provided that any reason for refusal of flexible work relied upon by an employer must be objectively justifiable, appropriate and proportion. The original Bill included 13 grounds for refusal but instead the Government is now replacing that with an elevating code of practice to be agreed later. Our understanding now is that the employer grounds for refusing flexible work will not be rooted in the primary legislation. We know the gains made by workers during the pandemic on flexible work are being eroded and employers are more frequently demanding that employees return to the office. Measure of this nature require substantially more debate and scrutiny. Watered-down rights for workers should not be slipped in through late Stage amendments. Only 60 minutes have been provided later on Report Stage for more than 20 pages of amendments and the Minister and the Government should not rush this through in such a manner. On Committee Stage, the Minister also said he hoped to introduce provisions to provide for maternity leave for Oireachtas Members. Will he indicate what his plans are for that now?

See this speech in context