Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I addressed the fact that one may end up with people reapplying a one- to three-month period of waiting for a decision, after reapplying, and all the paperwork being done again.This is the kind of measure that is going to make this legislation not work. When things like this are put in legislation, people will apply, they will do it, it will be this whole process, they will get it and then they will find the arrangements pulled out from under them. This may be done by an employer who says they really need people this month. The Bill does not provide the employer with an option of seeking a temporary suspension for, say, a four or six-week period. The option for the employer is also that they must deal with a whole new request and go through the whole process again from the start. How is that serving anybody? How is that not needless extra paperwork? Why would not provide for this in the legislation? If seasonality is an issue and there are such variations, why not recognise that? Rather than giving this nuclear option of termination to employers, we should give them something they can actually use, like a temporary suspension. That might be something that would serve both employer and employee better, rather than going back to the whole process again and starting that whole piece again. Of course, it does not preclude people going through it again if they wish.

Do we as legislators genuinely want people to be accessing flexible and remote work, rather than just pretending to offer it to them and having legislation in order that we can go on the plinth and say, is it not great this is available? If we want something that works, let us look to how it will work in practice. We all know how it will play out if many arrangements are put in place coming into termination in August or in December at a busy time of year. We risk having an initial rush of people applying for this and then the process wears them down and it becomes one of those things people can technically go for but they feel it will only be taken away from them again in six months' time. People will wonder if it is really worth going through the hassle. Why not give tools that will work? When we are saying things to the Minister in the Chamber, I have been concerned by the very flat non-acceptance of what are constructive, straightforward ideas. Why not accept a constructive idea that deals directly with the issue of seasonality in a way that suits both employer and employee rather than lumping seasonality, which is a temporary issue, in with the other more permanent and substantial reasons for termination that are here? Why not treat it differently? It is, after all, different.