2026-05-07

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to provide an entitlement to employees to request certain flexible working arrangements, to make certain provision for amending or terminating any such arrangements that have been agreed with an employer, to give further effect to Directive (EU) 2019/1158 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on work-life balance for parents and carers and to provide for related matters. This is the first Bill I have brought forward myself. I was privileged to bring forward on Second Stage a Bill that Senator Alice-Mary Higgins had worked on. As I came into this job to be a legislator, this is a really exciting moment for me. I thank the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers, OPLA, for its work on this project and the assistance it provided to me. Most of all, I thank my team, particularly my parliamentary assistant, for the work they have done in bringing this Bill to the House. The justification for this Bill is that it brings about significant reforms to the area of flexible working, which affects a huge part of the population now. As we have heard in recent contributions, both in committee and here in the Chamber, the current legislation does not deal with the issue. There is a mechanism by which the right to request remote working is dealt with but, unfortunately, it is just not working and the numbers tell the tale. Only 70 workers have achieved flexible working through formal processes in the courts. That is obviously nowhere near the nearly 1 million people who have different arrangements of flexible and remote working. The Bill deals with the objective proof required to refuse a request for flexible working. Those reasons relate to the unreasonable burden for the employer to a point where corrective action would have to be taken, the detrimental impacts on the work of the employee and the pre-existing structural plans made by the employer, which are contrary to flexible working. It makes the case that the employer has to put forward much stronger. This Bill also rewrites the process of consideration of a request, which removes ambiguity and reduces the maximum potential time for consideration. The Bill ensures that changing and cancelling is done on the same objective grounds that I have discussed. That means it provides significant protection to the hundreds of thousands of employees who are currently in flexible working arrangements, many of whom have entered into those arrangements in informal ways and ways that are simply not protected by law. It also protects them from penalisation. I have worked in the corporate sector and the private sector, as well as in the public sector, and I have also run my own business. It is the reality that there are people who will not approach their employer because of the fear of penalisation for even asking for flexible and remote working arrangements. This legislation looks to protect that as well. The Bill looks to provide balance and give workers who are engaged in flexible and remote working the exact same rights that workers who are not in those arrangements enjoy. It deals with the legislation that is necessary to do that, as well as the ways in which existing legislation will be altered. In summary, what the proposed Bill does is bring legislation into line with the reality that we are all in right now. Since Covid, remote and flexible working has been transformational in the lives of many people. People in Ireland make decisions about their lives based on flexible and remote working. However, right now, there is an imbalance. For example, it is easier to access in the public sector than in the private sector, and in many cases, it is done in informal ways. As we see in so many areas of employment, the imbalance of power between the employer and the employee means there is nothing that people can do to protect it, build around it and feel secure within the arrangement. Of course, this disproportionately affects women and others who take on the additional care burden. I am a single mum. I raised my daughter alone and it would have been really nice to have flexible working arrangements available to me when I was dealing with many of the challenges of balancing that care and work. It also affects people with disabilities who have been able to take up employment since Covid in ways they were not able to do before. As we have seen, many companies right now are simply saying, “Come back to work. That is our decision. We are not consulting with you.” They do not have to because, in this country, we have a voluntarist system under which they do not have to recognise trade unions. Ultimately, that is what this Bill boils down to. During Covid, it suited employers to deal with it in that way. Right now, we are starting to see that in the existing fuel crisis, it is once again going to be the case that they are looking for people to avail of flexible and remote working arrangements, or at least the State will. Once again, however, the employer has all the cards to play here and the employee has none. In the public sector, there is more room for negotiation and collective bargaining because there is greater trade union recognition but because of the voluntarist system, that simply does not exist for others. The Bill addresses the specific area of flexible and remote work-life balance in the context of that power imbalance. I look forward to debating it in the House.

Is the Bill opposed?

No.

Since this is a Private Members' Bill, Second Stage must, under Standing Orders, be taken in Private Members' time.

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."