Work Life Balance Bill

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh

I am glad I came in early as I see someone is availing of work-life balance, and we see that every silver lining apparently has a cloud for Deputy Murphy. We have the great luxury of a position of permanent opposition, where we can find fault in everything. In fact—–

Deputy Paul Murphy

The Deputy should be ashamed of himself.

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh

I am not one bit ashamed of myself.

Deputy Paul Murphy

The Deputy really should be.

Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh

I am not one bit ashamed of the achievements of this Government in terms of progressing workers’ rights – not one bit. I am proud to stand over it. I am proud to stand over those new things that we have brought during the lifetime of this Government. We spoke about some of them earlier, for example, the extension of parental leave being one of those important things and it is now out to seven weeks, which is very significant for people, the right to request remote working and the introduction of sick leave for the first time. These are all very important and substantial steps forward on the right to work in our economy and society.

This Bill adds momentum to that. In brief, it includes three measures: the right to request flexible working arrangements for caring purposes; the right to leave for medical purposes for carers and employees with children up to the age of 12; and the extension of the entitlement to breastfeeding and lactation breaks from six months to two years. We spoke earlier about how important this is and how, very often, that six months was used up by women taking maternity leave. This now extends the right. I want to acknowledge the work that was undertaken over a long period, but this week in particular, by our colleague, Senator Pauline O’Reilly, who had Private Members’ business on breastfeeding just this week in the Seanad.

I note that at the launch of this Bill, the Minister said he intends to bring forward amendments on Committee Stage to provide domestic violence leave for employees, with reports suggesting it could be up to five days. I echo Deputy Farrell’s view that the comments from IBEC regarding this were tone deaf. I reject some of the criticism from Deputy Gannon. It is important that this happens. I know there is a legislative process that has to happen but people will be given a good line of sight on these amendments on Committee Stage. We have a committee procedure for good reason. It is right to bring it forward rather than wait around for stand-alone legislation and it is right that we act on it.

This legislation moves towards making Ireland a fairer place and makes moves in terms of valuing people who work in caring roles. We know that very often falls predominantly on women and we should be careful that it is not left exclusively as the preserve of women. Men have to step up and make sure they contribute in caring roles, and brothers, sons, husbands and dads should step up to the plate in that regard. This Bill allows that to happen and it allows that flexibility for each of us to step into those caring roles.

I would like to acknowledge there has been a huge increase in the number of women entering the workforce just in the last two years, in fact, far more than we see elsewhere across the EU. I know a lot of that can be attributed to that move towards flexible and remote working and working from home, but it also has a lot to do with our pandemic response, for example, measures like the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, and the Covid restrictions support scheme, CRSS, where we made sure that work teams were held together. We know a lot of the workplaces affected were predominantly female workplaces. Those labour force interventions were important and prevented a scarring effect which meant we then saw a bounce-back in the economy.

As a balancing footnote in terms of remote and flexible working, many of us have seen a bleed from one sphere into the other, and a lot of that has to do with the pervasiveness of technology. We all have a smartphone in our pocket and the work email follows us home. A very good friend of mine works in a tech company and can work from home without a problem. He started going back into the office just because he can close the door on it at 5.30 p.m. or 6 p.m. and he can go home and be with his family properly. Something we have incorporated into the programme for Government is that right to disconnect and perhaps it is something we can look at on Committee Stage of this Bill. As we begin to think of work-life balance, yes, we want to give people the option to participate in the labour force more and in a manner that suits them, but we also need to make sure that when people go home, they get to be at home, which is very important.

Although I am repeating what I said earlier on oral questions, the Minister will know this is a hobby horse of mine, namely, the well-being framework and how this Government is acting to expand that definition of what we are. We are not an economy; we are a society. The economy should work for society, rather than the other way round. When we are looking at how our society and economy are performing, we have to look much further than GDP. We have to look at other elements like work-life balance, and that is one of the things that is explicitly treated in the framework that is under preparation at the moment. There are other things, such as how equipped we feel to engage in civil society and how accessible we feel our local democratic structures to be. All of the movement in this Bill and the other pieces of work this Government is doing is all about expanding that conception of what it is we are doing as a society, taking a broader view on it and making sure we do not just treat people as economic units but as people. This Bill is taking significant steps in the correct direction on that. I thank the Minister for his work on it.