Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support these amendments. I have similar amendments to the section on remote working. The detailed points made by Senator Currie and, though blunt, the wide frame of amendment No. 15 are important. Despite its Title, the Bill's contents are actually about needs – the urgent needs of those suffering domestic violence, the urgent need to medical care and the need to care. That is not work-life balance, though. Rather, that is addressing urgent care needs. The Title should read, "Work (Accommodation of Care Needs)", which is different from "Work Life Balance". We have always understood work-life balance to mean having a life and a job that fit together well.

There are many reasons for people to seek flexibility. I understand that there is a particular urgency around the need for flexible working arrangements for those who are balancing care needs but claiming that we have achieved work-life balance because we are letting people who have to contribute to society in some other way design their work around that contribution is not the same as work-life balance. There would be a danger in framing flexible working as just being for these care needs. There is an urgent need to accommodate them and I understand why the Minister might begin there, but despite what it is called, this is not a transformative work-life balance Bill. People might want to move to a four-day week for many reasons, and I might reserve the right to table an amendment on this matter on Report Stage. Perhaps people are volunteering. Perhaps they are artists in other parts of their lives and a four-day week would make a difference. Perhaps they want to spend three days in nature. None of this has anything to do with needs, but with people's work-life balance. Compressing 40 hours of work into a four-day week might make a significant difference to them. In terms of remote working, maybe they work better with music in the background. Maybe it is a matter of the commute. Maybe people have environmental reasons for not wishing to commute to work when they do not believe it is necessary to be there in person every day to perform their jobs and deliver as employees.

I understand the urgency for beginning with these particular care needs, mainly because society has been relying on people to deliver unpaid care and extra care. When that work is not accommodated by schedules and employers, it creates extra pressure, but I am worried that we are narrowing the meaning of "flexible employment". Coming out of Covid is a transformative moment and we know that many workplaces have been proven to work well with flexible arrangements and hybrid work being a greater part of the package. If we narrow the definition to just asking what concessions employers might give to employees instead of asking how the world of work could be redesigned to fit better into life and society, we will be framing it as an assumption that the employer does not want people to do flexible work because it is a disadvantage and will only make a concession if the need is proven. I will come to this point later.

I am concerned about the needs framing being used in the section on remote working as well as in the section on care needs. If someone is looking for remote working, why must he or she frame that in terms of needs instead of as an option? The narrow framing of flexible work arrangements towards care seems to be leaking into the wider discussion on flexible work and how we approach remote working. I understand why the Minister might be beginning at this point, but I am worried that we are setting a template that is needs based rather than possibility based. I urge him to consider these amendments.