Written answers
Wednesday, 25 October 2023
Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment
Employment Rights
Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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80. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he will outline what the Workplace Relations Commission’s response was to a request concerning legislation (details supplied); the reason the directive, guaranteed at the time by the then Minister, was never implemented; and the position of the Government on this vitally important issue. [46846/23]
Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The Government is committed to supporting workers and has a strong record on strengthening and introducing new workers’ rights.
As the Deputy is aware, the Employment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2018, came into force on 4 March 2019. This Act introduced a number of measures to strengthen employee rights and to address the problems caused by the increased casualisation of work.
Ireland also has in place a Code of Practice on Access to Part-Time Work. The Code was drawn up by the then Labour Relations Commission in consultation with the social partners pursuant to the Protection of Employment (Part-Time Work) Act 2001.
Among other provisions, the Code of Practice sets out that, as far as possible, employers should give consideration to a request by workers to transfer from part-time to full-time work or to increase their working time should the opportunity arise. The Code was put on a statutory footing in S.I. No. 8 of 2006.
During the passage of the 2018 Act, on foot of Dáil and Seanad debates, the then Minister engaged with the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) on a review of the 2001 Act and 2006 Code of practice. It was decided in 2019, as the 2018 Act had only just commenced, that some time post enactment would be required to gauge the impact of that significant piece of legislation.
In February 2023, I wrote to the WRC requesting a review of the Code of Practice on Part-Time Work to assess the overall effectiveness of the suite of protections for Part Time Workers. The WRC confirmed that a review of a number of Codes of Practice including that on Access to Part-Time Work is on the WRC’s Work Programme for 2023.
As part of this Programme, the Commission's Advisory Service is revisiting these Codes of Practice with a view to updating them given that they may have been in place for a considerable period of time. These are now currently being considered in the context of whether or not a new Statutory Instrument for each will be required in order to include any updates/amendments.
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