Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023

• Year: 2023

Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023

2023 8

An Act to give further effect to Directive (EU) 2019/1158 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019

[79 2019]

on work-life balance for parents and carers and repealing Council Directive 2010/18/EU and, for that purpose and other purposes, to amend the Parental Leave Act 1998 to provide for the entitlement of certain employees to leave for medical care purposes and domestic violence leave and to request flexible working arrangements for caring purposes; to provide for the entitlement of employees to request remote working arrangements; and for those and other purposes to amend the Redundancy Payments Act 1967, the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, the Maternity Protection Act 1994, the Adoptive Leave Act 1995, the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997, the National Minimum Wage Act 2000, the Adoption Act 2010, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014, the Workplace Relations Act 2015 and the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022; and to provide for related matters. [4th April, 2023

1 Short title, collective citation and commencement

(1) This Act may be cited as the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023.

(2) The Parental Leave Acts 1998 to 2019 and Part 2 may be cited together as the Parental Leave Acts 1998 to 2023.

(3) This Act, other than Parts 3 and 4 and sections 40 and 41, shall come into operation on such day or days as the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth may by order or orders appoint either generally or with reference to any particular purpose or provision and different days may be so appointed for different purposes or different provisions.

(4) Part 3 shall come into operation on such day or days as the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment may by order or orders appoint either generally or with reference to any particular purpose or provision and different days may be so appointed for different purposes or different provisions.

(5) Part 4 and section 40 shall come into operation on such day or days as the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, in consultation with the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, may by order or orders appoint either generally or with reference to any particular purpose or provision and different days may be so appointed for different purposes or different provisions.

2 Definition - Part 2

2. In this Part, “Principal Act” means the Parental Leave Act 1998.

3 Amendment of section 2 of Principal Act

3. The Principal Act is amended in section 2—

(a) in subsection (1)—

(i) by the insertion of the following definitions:

“‘Act of 2015’ means the Workplace Relations Act 2015;

‘adopting parent’ means a qualifying adopter or a surviving parent within the meaning of the definitions of ‘qualifying adopter’ and ‘surviving parent’ in section 2(1) of the Adoptive Leave Act 1995 but as if, in both of those definitions, ‘or is to be placed’ were omitted in each place where it occurs;

‘adoptive parent’, in relation to a child, means a person in whose favour an adoption order in respect of the child has been made and is in force;

‘approved flexible working arrangement’ means a flexible working arrangement, the request for which has been approved under section 13C(1)(b)(i);

‘civil partner’ shall be construed in accordance with section 3 of the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010;

‘code of practice’ means any code of practice for the time being standing approved in accordance withPart 4 of the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023;

‘cohabitant’ shall be construed in accordance with section 172(1) of the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010;

‘continuous employment’ includes employment completed by an employee under two or more continuous fixed-term contracts with the same employer;

‘flexible working arrangement’ means a working arrangement where an employee’s working hours or patterns are adjusted, including through the use of remote working arrangements, flexible working schedules or reduced working hours;

‘household’ means a person who lives alone or 2 or more persons who live together;

‘relevant parent’, in relation to a child, means a person who is—

(a) the parent, the adoptive parent or the adopting parent in respect of the child, or

(b) acting inloco parentis to the child;

‘request for a flexible working arrangement’ means a request referred to under section 13B(1);”,

(ii) by the substitution of the following definition for the definition of “employee”:

“‘employee’ means a person of any age who has entered into or works under (or, where the employment has ceased, entered into or worked under) a contract of employment and includes a part-time employee and a fixed-term employee, and references, in relation to an employer, to an employee shall be construed as references to an employee employed by that employer; and for the purposes of this Act, a person holding office under, or in the service of, the State (including a member of the Garda Síochána or the Defence Forces or a civil servant within the meaning of the Civil Service Regulation Act 1956) shall be deemed to be an employee employed by the head (within the meaning of the Freedom of Information Act 2014), of the public body (within the meaning aforesaid) in which he or she is employed and an officer or servant of a local authority for the purposes of the Local Government Act 2001 (as amended by the Local Government Reform Act 2014), or of a harbour authority, the Health Service Executive or a member of staff of an education and training board shall be deemed to be an employee employed by the authority, Executive or board, as the case may be;”,

(b) by the insertion of the following subsection after subsection (3):

“(3A) For the purposes of this Act, a person shall be considered to be in need of significant care or support for a serious medical reason where, owing to the person’s disability, injury or illness, he or she requires such care or support that includes the presence of the employee at the place where the person is.”,

and

(c) by the substitution of the following subsection for subsection (4):

“(4) A word or expression used in this Act and also in Directive (EU) 2019/1158 of 20 June 2019² 1shall have the same meaning in this Act as in that Directive.”.

² OJ No. L188, 12.7.2019, p.79

4 Amendment of section 6 of Principal Act

4. Section 6 of the Principal Act is amended—

(a) by the insertion of the following subsection after subsection (3):

“(3A) For the purposes of this section, where an employee ceases to be the employee of an employer and, not more than 26 weeks after the date of cesser, the employee again becomes the employee of the employer, the period of service of that employee with that employer before the date of cesser shall be deemed to be continuous with the period of service of that employee with that employer after again becoming such employee.”,

and

(b) in subsection (9), by the deletion of the following definitions:

(i) “adopting parent”;

(ii) “adoptive parent”;

(iii) “continuous employment”;

(iv) “relevant parent”.

5 Amendment of section 10 of Principal Act

5. Section 10 of the Principal Act is amended—

(a) in subsection (2)(b), by the substitution of—

(i) “ill or incapacitated” for “sick”, in each place that it occurs, and

(ii) “illness or incapacity” for “sickness”,

and

(b) in subsection (5), by the substitution of “illness or incapacity” for “sickness”, in each place that it occurs.

6 Leave for medical care purposes

6. The Principal Act is amended by the insertion of the following section:

“13A. (1) An employee shall be entitled to leave without pay from his or her employment, to be known and referred to in this Act as leave for medical care purposes, for the purposes of providing personal care or support to a person to whom this subsection applies.

(2) Subsection (1) applies to a person who—

(a) is one of the following:

(i) a person of whom the employee is the relevant parent;

(ii) the spouse or civil partner of the employee;

(iii) the cohabitant of the employee;

(iv) a parent or grandparent of the employee;

(v) a brother or sister of the employee;

(vi) a person, other than one specified in any of subparagraphs (i) to (v), who resides in the same household as the employee,

and

(b) is in need of significant care or support for a serious medical reason.

(3) Leave for medical care purposes shall consist of one or more days on which, but for the leave, the employee would be working in the employment concerned but shall not exceed 5 days in any period of 12 consecutive months and shall not be taken in a period of less than one day.

(4) A day on which an employee is absent from work on leave for medical care purposes in an employment for part only of the period during which he or she is required to work in the employment on that day shall be deemed, for the purposes of subsection (3), to be one day of leave for medical care purposes.

(5) When an employee takes or intends to take leave under this section, he or she shall, as soon as reasonably practicable, confirm in the prescribed form given to his or her employer, that he or she has taken or intends to take, as the case may be, such leave.

(6) A confirmation under subsection (5) shall—

(a) specify the date of commencement of the leave for medical care purposes and its duration,

(b) contain a statement of the facts entitling the employee to the leave, and

(c) be signed by the employee concerned.

(7) On receipt of a confirmation under subsection (5), an employer shall retain the confirmation and shall provide the employee...