Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the Chamber to take this. My question today relates to the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023. Why, more than six months after the President signed this Act into law, are parts of this legislation not operational? As of October 2023, we still do not have a statutory right in force for domestic violence leave, a right to request remote work, a right to request flexible work, powers granted to Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, officers in the case of disputes on remote working arrangements or protections for workers when employers are refusing or distorting the processes. I am conscious that these things take time but this is beyond taking due time.

The WRC was tasked with putting in place a code of practice. The closing date for consultations was 9 June. That is almost 18 weeks ago. On 3 July, the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, commenced sections of the Act relating to carer's leave and breastfeeding leave, yet some of the most important and crucial parts of the Act remain uncommenced. I feel very strongly about the right to flexible work for all workers in workplaces where it is possible, because of the chances it offers to so many people who want to work and cannot, or those who want to work full-time but cannot because of commuting, the lack of childcare available or circumstances in their lives. In particular, this includes working parents, lone parents, those with a disability and those who had to relocate out of Dublin, Cork and the other major urban areas because they are priced out of them by house prices and rents. Almost one in three women at work in Ireland today work part-time. Not all work part-time because they want to. They do so because of the lack of childcare and the lack of flexible work arrangements on offer in their workplaces.

I think any Government that is serious about reducing the gender pay gap and improving the share of women in full-time employment has to realise that flexible work arrangements are really vital. Members of the Minister of State's party made those arguments passionately when we were debating this Bill. The Government obviously decided to introduce a much narrower and more restrictive version of a right to flexible work in the Bill, confining it to only certain categories of workers, which I believe is a mistake. Nonetheless, we now have an Act on the Statute Book with large parts of it uncommenced.

The key thing that I want to say to the Minister of State is that the delays are having a real impact. A lone parent contacted me a number of times during the summer and as recently as two weeks ago, to say she is trying to do her best for her family and cannot access after-school care for her child because of the black spot with regard to childcare and after-school care in our area.She wants to finish at 3.30 p.m. every day in order to collect her child but her employer is making her work until 4.30 p.m. She has nobody and no family around to collect that child. There is no framework for her to try to assert her right. Indeed, there is no framework or guidance for the employer as to how it should act in that regard. I am thinking of a family with two children who had to move two and a half hours up the road from here because they simply could not afford to continue renting in Dublin. They are now being forced back into the workplace, which is a Government Department, and there is no framework for negotiation on a right to request remote work.

I want to hear from the Minister of State that there will be a speedy commencement of these sections of the Act and that he accounts for why the WRC has not produced that code of practice to date.