Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

462. To ask the Minister for Health the status in law and practice of an EU directive that recognises travel time as payable work time for those engaged in the provision of home help and caring support in the home of the service recipient; his plans towards such a clear and undeniable entitlement; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11204/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I expect that the Deputy is referring to a ruling made in September 2015 by the European Court of Justice (CJEU) in the Tyco case. The decision made in the Tyco case was based on a set of facts relating to the particular circumstances of peripatetic workers in the context of a pre-existing arrangement in respect of those journeys.

In the Tyco case, the employer made a decision to abolish its regional offices and directed all regional workers to remotely report to its head office in Madrid. This decision to abolish the regional offices put these workers at a disadvantage compared to their previous working arrangements. The CJEU found that the fact that the journeys of the workers, at the beginning and end of each day to and from customers, had been regarded by Tyco as working time before the abolition of the regional offices, showed that the work consisting of driving a vehicle from a regional office to the first customer and from the last customer to that office was previously considered to be working time by the employer. The Court noted that the nature of those journeys had not changed since the abolition of the regional offices and it was only the departure point of the journeys that had changed. It is these distinct facts pertaining to the circumstances of these workers that informed the decision of the Court.

In relation to how this ruling affects employees in the Irish Health Service, I will be guided by how our national court interprets this ruling in the context of the provision of home help and home support services.