Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I move:

That it be an instruction to the Committee to which the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2022 may be recommitted in respect of certain amendments that, pursuant to Standing Order 187, the Committee has power to make amendments to the Bill which are outside the scope of the existing provisions of the Bill in order to make amendments to the quorum arrangements for the Board of the Adoption Authority Ireland to facilitate Board meetings under the Adoption Act, and to extend the tracing power under Part 5 of the Birth and Information Tracing Act 2022 to Tusla and the Adoption Authority Ireland in order to establish that the parents named in a qualifying person's records are deceased, and to make other consequential amendments required to take account of the changes above.

I am aware there are a few procedural questions about what we are discussing now and what we will be discussing on Report Stage later. At the start of Committee Stage on this Bill I flagged I would be bringing a set of amendments on Report Stage. One set of amendments deals with amendments to the Birth Information and Tracing Act and another set merges the right to request remote working proposal into the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill. We have been advised the first set of birth information and tracing amendments must be recommitted to Committee Stage and this is the purpose of this motion. We are advised the right to request remote working amendments do not require the Bill to be recommitted so my contribution is going to focus on the information and tracing amendments but I will also briefly address the right to request remote working element as well.

I am bringing forward an amendment to the Birth Information and Tracing Act under the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill. The landmark passage of the Birth Information and Tracing Act through these Houses represented a long overdue recognition of rights of access to a person's own information. For the first time in the history of the State adopted persons have a clear and guaranteed right of access to their identity information, including information which is also the personal data of another person and certain defined categories of third-party information. It also allows for access to information by a child of a relevant person where their parent has died and for access by the next of kin of children who died in an institution. This level of guaranteed access is not possible under established data protection law, such as the general data protection regulation, GDPR, and this is what makes the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022 ground-breaking in nature.

The new law establishes a robust tracing service and a contact preference register, as well as a range of new bespoke measures to address issues arising for people affected by illegal birth registration. A bespoke website, www.birthinfo.ie went live on 1 July. The contact preference register provided for under the Act was established on 1 July. The register enables people affected to register their preference for contact, the level of contact preferred or indeed no contact. Since opening, almost 3,000 new contact preferences have been registered, both within Ireland and from abroad. The Adoption Authority of Ireland has identified 194 matches to date and is engaging directly with individuals to support their preference for contact.

As of 5 December, a total of 5,847 applications for information have been received by Tusla and the Adoption Authority of Ireland. In addition, a total of 2,597 applications for tracing have been made. The initial surge of demand for services under the new Act presents some significant challenges for the two bodies in processing the huge number of applications received. Both Tusla and the Adoption Authority of Ireland are working hard to process applications for information and, to date, information has been released to 558 individuals. Each week, more and more people are receiving their information and finding answers to long-held questions.

Last week, I received two separate emails from individuals who had received their birth name for the very first time using the provisions of the Act. It is delivering for the people we passed it for.

Regarding the amendments proposed, Tusla has identified one technical enhancement to the Act that would further support delivery of information services under the legislation. The intention of the amendment is to enable Tusla or the Adoption Authority of Ireland to conduct a trace in circumstances where an application has been made and it is necessary to establish if the persons listed as parents on the birth certificate or birth information are deceased. This verification trace would be automatic on receipt of an application and would not require a qualifying person to request the trace or the Minister to direct or consent to the trace. Currently, under Part 3 of the legislation a qualifying person, that is, the child of a deceased relevant person, can receive the birth and early life information of their deceased parent in circumstances where the parents named on the birth certificate of the relevant person are also deceased. In order to establish that the grandparents in question are deceased, Tusla would benefit from being able to avail of the tracing powers provided for in Part 5 of the Act.

Part 4 provides that a qualifying relative, that is, the next of kin of a relevant person who died as a child while resident in a mother and baby or county home institution, can obtain the birth and early life information of their deceased relative. While parents will automatically receive this information on application, in the case of a qualifying relative who is not a parent of the relevant person, the information may only be released where the parents named on the birth certificate are deceased. In order to establish that the parents named in the records are deceased, it would be useful for Tusla and the Adoption Authority of Ireland to have the authority to avail of the tracing powers provided for under Part 5 of the Act. The amendment supports the primary purpose of the Act and will ensure the release of information in all cases where it is available.

As I indicated on Committee Stage, the work life balance Bill now includes an amendment that will give a right to request remote working to all workers. The right to request flexible working remains limited to parents and carers. The main changes to the Bill arising from this are the introduction of a statutory code of practice which will govern both flexible and remote working requests, and a requirement for employers to have regard to the code when considering remote working requests. This means that all requests for remote and flexible working will be considered under one piece of integrated legislation, simplifying the process for employers and employees and reducing the administrative burden on businesses. The Bill also now includes a provision for the flexible working provisions to be reviewed after two years, including a consideration of extending the entitlement to request flexible working to all employees.

I note that the pre-legislative scrutiny reports on both the right to request remote working Bill and the work life balance Bill recognised the similarity of the Bills and recommended that certain aspects should align with each another. The proposed remote working amendments wholly or partially incorporate all 20 of the recommendations of the pre-legislative scrutiny report on the right to request remote working Bill. In particular, recommendation 12 of the report sets out that the remote working legislation should align with the general scheme of the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill. This is exactly what the Government is doing through the proposed remote working amendments. In addition, six of the 20 recommendations of the remote working pre-legislative scrutiny report centred wholly or partially on the role a statutory code of practice might play in the implementation of the legislation once enacted. Through the proposed amendments, a single code of practice will be developed, which will form a core element of the decision-making processes governing requests for both flexible and remote working. I have no doubt we will discuss these in more detail on Report Stage. I commend the motion to the House.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for the opportunity to say a few words. Let us be honest: this debate would not have come about if Sinn Féin had not sought it. It is a pretty sad state of affairs that we had to request a debate on this matter, and on the broader issue of what is being done with this Bill. An amendment is being inserted into the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill, which in effect inserts a whole new piece of legislation into this Bill on its final Stage. It inserts what should be a stand-alone piece of legislation on remote working. This decision means bypassing key legislative stages in the Oireachtas.

Legislating to deliver a legal basis for remote working has been a priority for workers and representatives for a long time. Despite having nearly two and a half years to deliver this important legislation through a stand-alone Bill, the Government and the Tánaiste have failed. As a result, we now have a situation where the Government is trying to circumvent its failure by allowing the Tánaiste to annex his remote working legislation onto the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth's Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill. The result is that complex legislation, which should be delivered by way of a stand-alone Bill, is being introduced by way of amendment. By introducing the legislation as an amendment on the final Stage, the Government is bypassing three key stages that a stand-alone Bill would have gone through in the Dáil, namely, Second Stage, Committee Stage and Report Stage. The Government and the Tánaiste are pulling a fast one in relation to remote working and are denying us, as elected representatives, the opportunity to query or raise concerns regarding these complex legislative changes around remote working. This accusation will be reinforced later this evening when Report Stage of the work life balance Bill will be guillotined.

There are a number of questions regarding the recently published amendments that need to be answered. The new section 18(2) states that an "employee’s approved remote working arrangement shall not commence before a time when the employee concerned has completed 6 months continuous employment with the employer concerned." Why is the six months of continuous employment still being persisted with? Looking across the water, just this week the British minister with responsibility for small businesses has removed the clause requiring six months' continuous employment for workers requesting remote working. In announcing he was doing this, Kevin Hollinrake said it was a "no-brainer" to extend the existing right to request flexible working after 26 weeks with an employer to all employees from day one, as it would help to balance work life, help in terms of home life, help those with caring responsibilities and create a more diverse workforce. All we are asking is that the Government try hard to be as good on workers' rights as the Tories.

The proposed section 18(3)(c)(i) provides that a worker must state the reason they are seeking remote working arrangements. This is referred to as "the employee’s needs". Why should workers have to talk about their personal circumstances? Why should their personal circumstances form part of the consideration for a remote working request? In my mind there is a paternalistic aspect to this, which will mean requests for remote working will not be equally considered. Furthermore, section 18(3)(c)(ii) refers to the need for a worker to provide details of the proposed remote working location. So long as the worker is based in the State, what business is it of the employer where they will be located for the purposes of their work? The worker needs to be sure they can conduct their work and respect the confidentiality of the work. We are talking about adults here. They are not kids. They can come to that arrangement without people having to give that sort of information. If the work duties are being completed and if, on the days that the employee is requested to be on site, they are on site on time and are performing their duties, why is it any concern of the employer what their personal living arrangements are?

In the new section 23(2), what constitutes reasonable grounds for believing an employee is abusing remote working? How will this be proven? For instance, if Kevin is working remotely, and he is on top of all of his work, but he is seen in SuperValu at 3 o'clock in the afternoon buying milk, baby formula and a newspaper, can this be used as reasonable grounds to accuse him of abusing remote working? Kevin is working well, he is hitting all his key performance indicators and his work is fine, but he takes 20 minutes to get baby food and a newspaper. Could he be accused of abusing remote working? What are the checks and balances here? The Minister said that ramming all this legislation through together will simplify the process for employers and employees and reduce the administrative burden on businesses. It will not. There is absolutely no justification for that whatsoever. On and on the questions go, but we are denied a Second Stage, Committee Stage and Report Stage debate on this. The result is that democratic oversight is curtailed and the ability to amend and improve these aspects is interfered with.

My amendments to extend the paid leave for victims and survivors of domestic abuse were ruled out of order. As the Minister knows, we have a long-standing position in our party, similar to the position he used to have in his own, that ten days, which is the international norm, should be the benchmark. Ten days is what is available to people working in higher education institutions and in banks. For some reason, the Government saw fit to cut this in half. The Minister has not yet answered my questions as to how that is going to be dealt with within the Civil Service and public service, where there will effectively be two tiers. Some people will have ten days and some will have the statutory minimum of five.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I want to raise an issue that Family Carers Ireland brought to my attention last week. It is possible that it will be addressed in the amendments on Report Stage this evening but in case it is not, I wanted to put this on the record. If it is not going to be addressed this evening, it may be possible to have it addressed in the Seanad. The carers say they welcome the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill, which includes a number of important provisions for family carers. However, they are concerned with a particular aspect of Bill, which they have raised previously and had hoped would be rectified at this point.

That is why representatives from Family Carers Ireland are hopeful it might be addressed in the amendments this evening. Their concern relates to the specifications set out in the Bill regarding people for whom unpaid carer's leave days or flexible working can be applied for. They go on to list the various categories of person: the employees; the parent or adopted parent; the spouse or civil partner of the employee; a person to whom the employee is in loco parentis; the cohabitant of the employee; a parent or grandparent of the employee; a brother or sister of the employee; and a person other than one specified in any of the paragraphs (a) to (f), who live in the same household as the employee. Basically their concern is that the definition excludes applications in respect of care provided to non-relatives or other relatives who do not live in the same household. They feel it is at odds with carer's allowance and carer's benefit legislation and the Carer's Leave Act 2001, which allows a person to take carer's leave and receive a care-related payment for a neighbour, friend or relative including aunts, uncles and cousins. They argue that it is unusual that the legislation omits this and are wondering if it is some sort of oversight or a technical issue. They feel that they have been excluded. I am conscious of the time but I want to raise that matter with the Minister and hope he can look at it. As I said, he has tabled a number of amendments. Many of them are technical and might cover this. This came up on Committee Stage but if it is not covered, is there any way of looking at it before the Bill passes?

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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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?

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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This is typical of what we see in December and it is hugely disappointing. There are many issues to be had with the Government's Report Stage amendments to the Bill and to have the debate this evening guillotined to 60 minutes is a joke. We requested extra time for the debate at the Business Committee, as did other parties, and that was refused. A few of the amendments were completely outside the scope of the Bill and we are having a debate on that for an hour while the actual debate time largely remains the same. Clearly there was room for a longer debate on the Bill but the Government was not interested in allowing it. The Government was pushed into having a debate because there was not a consensus essentially allowing the motion to go ahead without debate. The Bill contains a variety of issues which deserve a lot more scrutiny than they are being given.

One of those issues is domestic violence leave, which the Government has capped at five days. It was made clear by witnesses and experts at the children's committee that five days is not sufficient and it must be ten days. My colleague, Deputy Cairns, tabled an amendment on this, which was ruled out of order. The West Cork Women Against Violence Project and Women's Aid outlined the importance of having ten days as a minimum, especially for women in rural settings who face additional barriers accessing services. The committee was told that a minimum of ten days was the international norm and that it was needed. Domestic and gender-based violence is endemic and the scale is terrifying. We could see that during Covid-19 particularly. We also know that the minimum leave possible should be ten days. It is inexcusable that the Government is suggesting five days. While rhetoric is strong in addressing issues around gender-based violence, actions are essential but this goes against international standards.

It is an absolute disgrace that the Government is attempting to slot the Tánaiste's Right to Request Remote Work Bill into Report Stage of this Bill. The Tánaiste's proposals on the right to request remote working are, to put it mildly, pretty useless. It is less a request for remote working and more a right to be told "No" in writing. No one was happy with the Bill. The unions and the Irish Business Employers Confederation, IBEC, did not support it and the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment flagged a long list of issues with it during pre-legislative scrutiny. Instead of listening to that, withdrawing the Bill and going back to the drawing board, the Government has decided to completely disregard the legislative process and progress the contents of Right to Request Remote Work Bill directly through this Bill on Report Stage. It is completely inappropriate and indicative of the Government's absolute disregard for the legislative process. Second and Committee Stages would have saved the Tánaiste's proposals on remote work. They need to be scrapped completely. A right to request working from home does not go far enough. The default position should be that flexible working is permissible. It should not be at the whim of employers to accept or reject it. A change like this could be truly transformative, particularly for women, disabled people and carers, many of whom have been forced to give up work or locked out of the jobs market because of the absence of a statutory right to work remotely. A legal right to work remotely would also have helped the Government meet its climate targets. I would have thought this would have been one of the central points the Minister would have made. The climate action plan envisages car travel being reduced by 500,000 journeys per day by 2030. A legal right to work from home would help meet these targets, reducing the need to commute by private car. The right to remote working is also of crucial importance to ease housing pressure in urban areas and facilitate urban regeneration. Instead, the height of the Tánaiste's ambition seems to be a version of the underwhelming legislation from the UK on the right to request working from home, which was widely acknowledged to be of very little use, particularly to workers.

We need a good deal more ambition than that. The pandemic already taught us that many jobs can be done remotely without the loss of productivity. The Government should not pretend otherwise. It needs to do more than make minor incremental changes in this area. There can be no going back to the old working practices. To ensure overdue and long-lasting reform, plans must include a legal right to work remotely.

In addition, last week it was announced that a limited trial for a four-day week was overwhelmingly successful for the 12 companies that took part. Of those companies, some plan to continue with that model into the future. The trial resulted in increased productivity for the companies and significantly improved benefits for staff, including reduced stress, improved family time and better sleep. If the Government wants to show any ambition in this area, now is the time to roll out a much broader pilot project to examine moving to a four-day week. It will not be possible for everyone but certainly a wider pilot is necessary. It is now nearly 100 years since we moved from a six-day working week. Technology and work practices have utterly changed in the intervening period, not least since Covid-19 sped up dramatically the roll-out of remote working. A four-day week is a win-win for workers and businesses. The Government should now build on the success of this initial trial and develop its own pilot of a four-day working week.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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As some speakers on the list are not here, we will move to the final group.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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In case anyone is caught on the hop or there are Deputies just outside the door waiting to take their slot, I am about to conclude the debate. There is no going back once I do so. This is an important issue. I do not know if there are other speakers present.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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Should we wait a moment and call them?

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I am going as far as my role allows me in permitting Members to speak in this debate.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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We cannot call them in that case.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I mean generally. Níl aon duine anseo so sin deireadh leis an díospóireacht ag an bpointe seo.