EMPLOYEES at Irish Life head-quarters have been asked to agree to changes in their working hours, so that customers can be served between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.

But as Irish Life was about to start negotiations with staff at headquarters on this issue, there has still been no agreement with sales staff on changes in working arrangements despite five weeks of intensive negotiations.

The dispute involving sales staff is now expected to be sent back to the Labour Relations Commission (LRC).

The company has presented a draft discussion document to staff at its Dublin headquarters proposing longer opening hours and greater flexibility. Irish Life wants to introduce the changes early next year. But a company spokesman said that any changes would be by mutual agreement and staff would be remunerated for any changes in the length of their working week.

A union spokesman confirmed yesterday that changes which could affect the working hours of some of the 800 staff employed at Irish Life headquarters were "on the table".

"We have received the proposals and we are examining them. We have to consult our members before we respond. But the company has clearly indicated that that these are matters for discussion," he said.

But the union spokesman warned that there were "some serious implications" in the current proposals on increasing the length of the working week. The trend in Europe was towards a shorter working week, he said.

As well as longer opening hours Irish Life has put forward a number of proposals for discussion. These included establishing a new career structure and greater investment in training staff at head office. The proposed changes were a response to customer needs, a spokesman said.

"We need to be open at times that suit the customer. In a competitive financial services market we need to find ways to ensure that our customer service areas are open at times that customers want. With banks and other financial services companies opening for longer hours we are conscious that the expectations of customers are changing," he said.

While discussions with the Manufacturing Science Finance union (MSF) representing staff at headquarters were about to begin, there has been no progress at intensive negotiations on new structures and payment systems for sales staff. After months of discussions between the company and the MSF, the LRC issued a recommendation to break the deadlock last August.

That recommendation involved the withdrawal by the company of dismissal threats, sales staff were to work to new managers pending agreement on new structures and the parties were to begin five weeks of intensive negotiations on the company's proposals. However, the five weeks of negotiations ended recently without any agreement. Sources said the gap was still very wide. One union source said the gap was too wide to bring the issues to the Labour Court "because the issues involved have not been defined".