Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 29 January 2013
148. Deputy Kevin Humphreys asked the Minister for Social Protection if there has been any study or analysis within her Department or associated agencies of the flexicurity welfare state model that is used in Denmark and Germany and may be introduced in France; if she has considered any aspects of this model in the reforms currently underway; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3922/13]
Amharc ar fhreagraFlexicurity is a very broad concept. While initially identified with the Danish model of high levels of compensation, weak employment protection and a high spend on activation measures, flexicurity has come to be seen as a way of describing quite a wide range of combinations of policy measures. There are in fact at least 16 combinations of flexibility and security found in EU member states that could be broadly deemed as some form of ‘flexicurity’. Broadly speaking flexibility and security are defined along the following lines: Flexibility refers to
- relevant transitions made during the working life-cycle
- upward mobility and talent development
- flexible organizations with incentives enabling the adaptation to new production processes
- ease of combination between working and personal life.
Security (understood beyond job security) refers to
- equipping people with the skills that allow them to make progress throughout their working lives and help them to find new jobs;
- adequate unemployment benefits to provide income support during periods of unemployment combined with employment supports to ease transitions back into employment
- training opportunities for all workers, in particular, the low-skilled and older workers.
Recently, there has been a greater emphasis on the flexibility component of flexicurity in this time of crisis, with the view that flexibility was in itself the best way to create job opportunities and by extension, security. In Ireland, we have, with the reforms to our activation system encapsulated in our Pathways to Work policy, defined our own Irish model of flexicurity. These reforms, when combined with the Action Plan for Jobs, aim to deliver on both flexibility and security. In particular, the rollout of the Intreo offices, throughout the country, is consistent with the flexicurity approach, linking the security of training and benefits with the flexibility of encouraging more intensive job search and transitioning between employments.
With regard to flexible and reliable contractual arrangements, (another tenet of flexicurity), there is a strong body of employment legislation in Ireland to ensure that workers’ rights are fully protected under a range of various contract types. Legislation has been introduced in recent years to protect employees who are engaged in more flexible working arrangements such as part time employment and fixed-term contracts. With regard to the welfare code we provide a range of options including casual working, part time work incentive and family income supplement which facilitate flexible work arrangements. A balance has been sought between, on the one hand, maintaining workers’ security in terms of their conditions of employment while, on the other, having due regard to the flexibility required by employers in terms of organising work and/or work patterns and seeking to ensure that job creation is not inhibited through overly rigid regulation. Within the body of legislation employers and employees have reasonable levels of freedom and flexibility to organise their work and their workplaces to take account of their particular needs and circumstances.
