Bill to provide for flexible and remote working set to be debated in Dáil

New regulations intended to facilitate employees wishing to work remotely over a prolonged period of time are unlikely to take effect before spring despite the Government’s attempt to accelerate legislation through its final stages.

Provisions relating to the right of employees to ask to work remotely and the circumstances in which an employer may refuse were originally advanced at the start of this year and contained in the Right to Request Remote Work Bill.

In the past few weeks, however, it was announced that they would be incorporated instead into the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill which is due for its report stage debate in the Dáil on Wednesday evening.

This Bill will make a wide range of changes to existing employment and other law with provisions made for leave to be taken for victims of domestic abuse and those needing to bring family members or others in their care for medical treatment.

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The current entitlement to breastfeeding breaks will be extended from 26 weeks to two years while there is also provision to ensure that transgender males who have obtained a gender recognition certificate under the Gender Recognition Act 2015 and subsequently become pregnant, are covered by the Maternity Protection Act 1994.

Among the long list of additions and amendments to an already wide-ranging piece of legislation intended to be covered in a debate scheduled to last just one hour are the provisions relating to remote working.

Sinn Féin’s spokeswoman on employment, who previously introduced a private member’s Bill that provided for 10 days’ per annum leave for victims of domestic abuse was critical of the scheduling and fact that this, like the leave for carers, is now set at five days in any 12-month period.

She says that “all is not lost” on the leave issue with support even on the Government stage for the 10-day proposal but she accepts that the time frame at this stage makes any change highly unlikely and on that basis says the party will oppose the current scheduling.

“We’re looking for more time,” she said. “We’re not opposing the Bill but we are opposing the debate. We are looking for more time because quite frankly it’s ridiculous. The Work Life Balance Bill, the elements that are in it, that’s fine, but it’s now incorporating new stuff that hasn’t had a chance for proper scrutiny, and an hour is all that’s been allotted. That’s for all of the debate. At this stage we could hold it over until the new year, have a proper discussion on it and actually do it right.

“But the thinking now seems to be to rush it through without discussion on the basis that people will look at it and think ‘it is better than nothing’ but that shouldn’t be the test we use.”

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A key purpose of the original Bill is, however, to give effect to an EU Directive on work-life balance for parents and carers and this is already overdue.

The remote working-related amendments do not include the list of specific reasons an employer could turn down such a request, which was widely criticised by unions and other organisations when the first draft of the proposals was published earlier in the year, but rather provide for a code of practice to be drawn up by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) with this then essentially setting down the rules that will govern the process.

This has been broadly welcomed but is likely to hold up the implementation of those sections of the legislation in the new year.

As things stand, the Bill is due to be debated in the Seanad next week and then go through its final stages there after the Christmas break and work on the code of practice can not begin until then.

Laura Bambrick, head of social policy & employment affairs at the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, was a member of the committee that formulated the code of practice on the right to disconnect in three months during the pandemic and regards it as unlikely that the required work could be done in much less time than that.

“It is a concern that there will be a delay before this aspect of the legislation is implemented,” she says.

Like Ms O’Reilly, she sees the requirement that workers are with an employer for six months before they can request remote working with the protections of the legislation as unfortunate when, she says, the UK is now moving away from this position to allow even those applying for jobs to request it.

She also points to the fact that the WRC can order an employer to pay a worker 20 weeks’ pay in compensation for a breach of the flexible working provisions but just four weeks’ pay in respect of the remote working ones as not providing a sufficient deterrent.

“So we would still have reservations about aspects of the Bill,” she says. “Overall, though, it’s a massive improvement on what was originally being proposed.”