The EU Working Time Directive provides for a number of exclusions from its scope. The original 1993 Working Time Directive (93/104/EC), which was transposed into national law by the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997, applied to all sectors of activity, both public and private, within the meaning of Article 2 of the Framework Health and Safety Directive 89/391/EEC. Article 2.2 of that Directive provided for exceptions in respect of certain public service activities, such as the armed forces or the police, and certain activities in the civil protection services. Therefore, when transposing the Directive, both the Defence Forces and the Garda Síochána were excluded from the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997. In addition, Regulations exempting the Civil Protection Services from certain provisions of the 1997 Act were also promulgated, i.e. the Organisation of Working Time (Exemption of Civil Protection Services) Regulations 1998 - S.I. No. 52 of 1998. However, subsequent Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rulings have indicated that the normal activities of the armed forces, emergency services or civil protection forces are covered by the Working Time Directive.
I have not received any formal request to extend the provisions of the Act to An Garda Síochána or to the Defence Forces from my colleague the Minister for Justice and Equality and Defence. However, in the context of the revised rosters in the Garda Síochána, which are currently being piloted, the Department of Justice and Equality has been in consultation with my Department on the question of the application of the Organisation of Working Time Act to members of the Garda Síochána and I understand that this work is ongoing in that Department. The Minister has also advised me that a working group comprising representatives from the Department of Defence and the Defence Forces are currently examining the application of the Organisation of Working Time Act to the Defence Forces.
The 1993 Working Time Directive had excluded the activities of doctors in training and most transport sectors such as air transport, rail transport, road transport, sea transport, inland waterway and lake transport as well as sea fishing and other work at sea. However, the 2000 Working Time Directive (2000/34/EC) amended the 1993 Working Time Directive to cover most workers in the sectors which had been excluded from that earlier Directive. Provisions to extend the scope of the Working Time Directive to many of the previously-excluded sectors were then transposed into national legislation under various Statutory Instruments. These Regulations included the Organisation of Working Time (Inclusion of Transport Activities) Regulations 2004 – S.I. No. 817 of 2004, the Organisation of Working Time (Inclusion of Offshore Work) Regulations 2004 – S.I. No. 819 of 2004, the European Communities (Workers on Board Sea-going Fishing Vessels)(Organisation of Working Time) Regulations 2003 – S.I. No. 709 of 2003. In addition, Regulations transposing the provisions on Doctors-in-Training were promulgated by the Minister for Health as set out below.
With regard to doctors in training, the 2000 Working Time Directive (2000/34/EC) provided for a derogation which would phase-in the maximum 48-hour average working week over a transitional period of five years from 1 August 2004. This provision was transposed into Irish legislation by Regulations promulgated by the Minister for Health by way of Statutory Instrument No. 494 of 2004 - the European Communities (Organisation of Working Time) (Activities of Doctors in Training) Regulations 2004 (as amended by Statutory Instrument No. 553 of 2010). These Regulations implemented a phased reduction from an average of 58 weekly working hours to an average of 48 hours (as provided for under the Working Time Directive) from 1 August 2009 onwards. The amending S.I. 553 of 2010 in relation to Doctors in Training provided for derogations from the rest breaks and daily and weekly rest provisions, where equivalent periods of compensatory rest are provided.
With regard to the Transport sector, the provisions of the amending 2000 Directive were transposed into Irish law by my Department by way of S.I. No. 817 of 2004 – the Organisation of Working Time (Inclusion of Transport Activities) Regulations 2004. These Regulations transposed the 2000 Directive in relation to transport workers, with some exceptions, namely those workers performing mobile road transport activities as provided for in Directive 2002/15/EC (i.e. workers subject to tachograph rules), and mobile staff in civil aviation as defined in the Annex to Council Directive 2000/79/EC of 27 November 2000. The effect of the transposition of those provisions of Directive 2000/34/EC relating to the transport sector was to apply the maximum average working week of 48 hours to mobile and non-mobile transport workers covered by that Directive. S.I. No. 817 of 2004 revoked the earlier 1998 Regulations (i.e. the Organisation of Working Time (Exemption of Transport Activities) Regulations, 1998 – S.I. No. 20 of 1998) which had exempted the transport sector from the rest provisions and weekly working hours provisions of the Organisation of Working Time Act. However, the exemptions in relation to the rest provisions continued to apply in S.I. No. 817 of 2004, subject to compensatory rest.
A number of other Community instruments set out more specific working time requirements for particular sectors or occupational activities, and these take precedence over the provisions of 2003 Working Time Directive (2003/88/EC) which consolidated and repealed the earlier Working Time Directives. These Community instruments are, in the main, in the transport sector, and my colleague the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport has given these effect in national law.
