The need for family-friendly work arrangements concerns men as much as women, and extends well beyond the issue of childcare, the Tánaiste has said.
Marking the second annual Family Friendly Workplace Day, Ms Harney told an audience in Dublin that balancing work and family life was "not all about children", but would improve conditions for disabled and elderly people too.
Reform was in "the pioneering phase" in Ireland and there was little that legislation could do, she added. But the continuing strength of the economy, with the resultant labour scarcity, was encouraging new ideas: "And it's only by changing mindsets that we can make progress."
The director-general of IBEC, Mr Turlough O'Sullivan, said there should be no job so taxing as to prevent an individual striking a balance between it and family life.
Restating the organisation's support for family-friendly policies, he said the imperative for such policies had come from the market, with full employment forcing companies to abandon old models of full-time office-based work.
The benefits of more flexible working arrangements were now clear, he added: "We've been dragged into this, but it's a pity we didn't get dragged in sooner."
The general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Mr David Begg, said that everybody was in favour of family-friendly policies, just as everybody was in favour of "mom and apple pie".
But we needed a "reality check" on the conditions facing families today. The pressures on family life were reflected in the wholesale withdrawal from political, community and voluntary activity, he added. Ireland was still a "solidaristic" society, as witnessed by the reaction to last year's foot-and-mouth crisis. But the lack of social engagement in a life involving 12 hours a day of commuting and work, endangered this solidarity, he said.
