Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. It is good to be able to talk about this welcome Bill. I should also point out that it has been brought forward because Ireland must fully transpose Articles 6 and 9 of the EU work-life balance directive. It is, therefore, something we have to do.

I agree with Senator Currie that in some respects the Bill is a missed opportunity. It is a rare occurrence but the Senator is right that this is a missed opportunity. If we are going to do this, we may as well do it right and ensure it benefits our people to the maximum extent possible.

Sinn Féin welcomes this Bill. It is a continuation of recent debates and legislation on remote working and flexibility. While a wider scope could have been adopted, the Bill is a welcome start. It provides leave for parents and carers, which is a good step forward. The Bill is not perfect and we have raised issues around the proof elements. More could be done on that and we can come back to it on Committee Stage. Indeed, the Minister can expect some amendments from us on Committee Stage.

Another very important provision in the Bill, as mentioned, is domestic violence leave. My party leader, Deputy Mary Lou McDonald, and my colleague, Deputy Louise O'Reilly, have previously put forward a Bill to provide this leave and the legislation before us resembles that in sentiment. However, we have issues with the five-day period. This Bill only provides between one and five days' leave. The wording of the Bill states the leave "shall not exceed 5 days", yet the Minister insists that five days is a statutory minimum. The wording is not clear enough for employers and could lead to those who would be inclined to provide ten days cutting back the period to five days. As we know, other countries and companies already provide ten days' leave. The Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science recently announced ten days' leave for staff in the National University of Ireland, Galway, NUIG, and called on the other universities to follow suit. I urge the Minister to reconsider the proposal and provide for ten days' leave. I acknowledge that a Fianna Fáil Senator has just made the same point. We will not get a chance to revisit this matter during the lifetime of this Government, so let us get the Bill right and provide for ten days' leave. We all seem to agree on that, so let us be ambitious and ensure the legislation is as effective as possible.

The Bill provides for flexible working arrangements, which are hugely important for parents as they try to manage or juggle childcare, school runs and other family commitments. Very few families can afford to live on one income so flexibility is crucial. We know that allowing an employee to have more control over his or her working hours and place of work has been shown to reduce absenteeism and staff turnover while increasing productivity. In other words, it is good for business. It also helps to cut travel cost and allows parents to manage their childcare and other caring responsibilities.

A new section 20(2) states: "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." Seriously, the British Tories, perhaps the most right-wing Tory Party we can remember, have just agreed that people can request remote working from day one. Does the Minister want his legacy to show that he is somewhere to the right of the Tory Party when it comes to this provision? There are common-sense, practical reasons remote working should commence from day one. There is also a very good business reason it should commence from day one because we know that skilled employees are now in serious demand and we need to be able to attract those employees to work and live in Ireland. However, this legislation will put us behind the Tories. As my colleague, Deputy Louise O'Reilly, said in the Dáil, we are only asking the Minister to do as much as the British Tories have done. For the life of me, I genuinely cannot understand why the Minister has not yet done this. I hope he will take into account Members' proposals, which I acknowledge have not come only from the Opposition side of the House. I urge him to make that change. He does not want to find himself to the right of the Tories on an issue such as this and he needs to do better. I do not know what his personal position is on this matter, and it would be interesting to hear it, but I urge the Minister to use his authority to recognise that making workers wait six months is not good for them or their home life and it is also not good for the commercial life of this country or the need to ensure Ireland is seen as a really good place to work. I ask the Minister to please come back and address that issue or allow us to address it on Committee Stage.

Section 20(3)(c)(i) states that employees must state the reasons they are seeking remote working arrangement. This is referred to as “the employee’s needs”. There are serious and genuine concerns about how someone's reasons or needs will be judged. What does it matter why someone wishes to work remotely provided the person is doing the work? This provision is too paternalistic and needs to be revised. Unfortunately, this and other amendments were brought forward by the Minister on Report Stage in the Dáil when they could not be properly scrutinised as they would be during Committee Stage. This caused a lot of frustration for my Dáil colleagues.

Sinn Féin supports the Bill but we will bring forward amendments. I urge the Minister to take on board the comments made by everyone in this Chamber this afternoon regarding sensible amendments that would make this Bill stronger and better for the workers in this country.