Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Liam  Brennan

Walls Construction

Representatives

 Lewis Silkin Ireland LLP

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 18 of the Parental Leave Act 1998

CA-00068125-001

16/12/2024

The complainant gave evidence on affirmation and outlined that he had been seeking to have consideration of his request for Parental Leave granted on the basis of one Friday every week for a period of six weeks.

He had various interactions with management and the HR department but ultimately his request was turned down. Efforts to resolve the matter at mediation were not successful.

In response to a question from the Adjudicator the complainant could not specify how the Act had been specifically breached by the respondent.

The complainant has instituted a claim under section 18 of the Parental Leave Act 1998, alleging that the respondent’s denial of his application to take every Friday as parental leave was unlawful.

The respondent has complied with its obligations under the Parental Leave Act 1998 and its Parental Leave Policy and has granted the request for parental leave on a trial basis. it engaged in constructive discussions to explore the possibility of extending the leave.

We have demonstrated a commitment to accommodating the complainant's needs while balancing operational requirements.

As set out below, the respondent is not under a legal obligation to facilitate requests for single days as parental leave.

On October 11th,  2024, the complainant contacted HR to express his interest in taking parental leave every Friday starting from November 22nd, 2024, and on November 15th,  2024, the request was granted on a trial basis until the end of December 2024.

Because the project that the complainant was assigned to was coming to an end, his absence on one day per week would put relatively little pressure on the rest of his team. This arrangement allowed him to take one day of parental leave per week, specifically on Fridays. This was a temporary arrangement and that the feasibility of extending the leave into 2025 would be reviewed

Throughout November and December 2024, the respondent engaged in ongoing discussions to clarify the terms of the parental leave and to address any concerns and  consistently communicated that any extension of the parental leave beyond December 2024 would require further consideration and approval from the management team overseeing his next project.

The complainant sought further clarification on his parental leave request. On December 10th, 2024, he was told that to extend his parental leave request beyond December, his next project would need to be confirmed and the Operations Director for that project would need to sign off on his request.

In due course he was moved to a different area within the same project which was significantly busier and necessitated the presence of a Section Manager for the full five-day work week. Continuing the temporary parental leave arrangement was not feasible, as it would place undue pressure on the complainant’s team in an already extremely busy worksite.

The respondent explored alternative options and offered the option of leaving the worksite earlier each Friday, or the possibility of facilitating the leave request every second Friday, but he declined both.

The respondent presented several alternative options such as  taking the leave in one block as per the Parental Leave Act,  potentially, subject to discussions with the Operations Director, exploring if taking parental leave every second week might be feasible; and allowing him to leave earlier on Fridays, as had previously been discussed. These were not acceptable to the Complainant.

In addition to the parental leave request, the complainant inquired about the possibility of working from home on Fridays, but the nature of the Complainant’s role required his physical presence on-site to supervise subcontractors and ensure project visibility.

Section 6(1) of the Parental Leave Act, provides that:

“…an employee who is a relevant parent in respect of a child shall be entitled to leave from his or her employment, to be known and referred to in this Act as ‘parental leave’, for a period of 26 working weeks to enable him or her to take care of the child.”

Section 7(1)(a) of the Parental Leave Act provides that an employee has an automatic entitlement to avail of parental leave in a single block, or two blocks of at least six weeks:

“…. parental leave may consist of

(a)                a continuous period [equal to the period referred to in section 6(1) (aa) subject to subsection (1A), 2 separate periods—

(i)                   each consisting of not less than 6 weeks, and

(ii)                 not exceeding the number of weeks referred to in section 6(1) in total.”

As detailed in the Complainant’s parental leave request, he sought parental leave for “…the Friday of each week….”. Therefore, he requested to take parental leave in a non-standard format. The Complainant did not propose a continuous block or the default minimum period of 6 continuous weeks as provided under section 7(1)(a). Consequently, his parental leave request does not comply with the requirements under section 7(1)(a).

Section 7(1)(b) of the Parental Leave Act states that:

“…. with the agreement of the employer or representatives of the employer and other employers and the employee or representatives of the employee and other employees, a number of periods each of which comprises—

(i)  one or more days on which, but for the leave, the employee would be working in the employment concerned,

(ii)   one or more hours during which, but for the leave, the employee would be working in the employment concerned…”

This section allows for flexible arrangements, such as taking one day per week, only if agreed by the employer.

Despite the Complainant’s request not complying with his entitlements under the Parental Leave Act, the Respondent engaged in several discussions with him regarding his parental leave request, but refused the  parental leave request on lawful grounds, as the proposed format required employer agreement, which was not granted as there is no obligation to Agree to One Day per Week and there would have been Operation Disruption due to the Complainant’s role as Section Manager on a large- scale data centre project.

The Respondent is entitled to refuse the  parental leave request, which is the subject of this complaint, on the grounds that it does not comply with section 7(1) of the Parental Leave Act. Therefore, his complaint must fail.

It is not at all difficult to sympathise with the complainant‘s reasons for seeking the leave which were to facilitate important extra-curricular activities for his young daughter.   However, to succeed in a complaint of this nature a complainant must establish some breach of the Act.

The applicable law is set out in detail in the respondent’s submission and the complainant did not take issue with any aspect  of it.

Indeed, he confirmed at the hearing that he could not identify a breach of the Act.

Accordingly, the complaint is not well founded.

For the reasons set out above Complaint CA-00068125-001 is not well founded.

Parental Leave