Asking for flexible working as a parent: the 8 weeks, and what nobody can review

There are two different rights here and most of the confusion comes from treating them as one. The right to request flexible working belongs to parents and carers and is the subject of this page. The right to request remote working belongs to every employee, came in on the same day, and runs on its own separate track, which is set out near the end.

Start with the encouraging part, because the rest of this page is about procedure. In the statutory review of the remote work request provisions, published in March 2026, the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment found that 94% of requests were approved, either fully or in part, that employers reported minimal administrative burden, and that the main problem was that too few people know the right exists. Asking is not the long shot it feels like.

The short version

Who can ask

A parent, or someone in loco parentis, of a child under 12, or under 16 if the child has a disability or long-term illness

When you can ask

From your first day in the job

When it can start

Not before you have 6 months' continuous service

Your deadline

In writing, signed, at least 8 weeks before the start you propose

Their deadline

4 weeks to approve or refuse in writing, extendable by up to 8 more

If refused

You get the reasons in writing, and the merits of them cannot be reviewed

Afterwards

You are entitled to return to the arrangement you had before

Who can ask, and the date it has to end

The right sits in section 13B of the Parental Leave Act 1998, inserted by the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023 and commenced in March 2024. Two groups may request a flexible working arrangement: an employee who is a relevant parent of a child and is providing care to that child, and an employee providing personal care or support to a listed person who is in need of significant care or support for a serious medical reason. That second list is the familiar one: child, spouse or civil partner, cohabitant, parent or grandparent, sibling, or someone else living in the same household.

For a child, the arrangement has an end date built into the Act, and it is worth knowing before you propose a duration:

• not later than the day the child turns 12,
• if the child has a disability or a long-term illness, not later than the day the child turns 16, or the day the disability or illness ceases, whichever comes first,
• and for a child who was adopted at between 10 and 12, two years from the date of the adoption order.

Citizens Information describes what the arrangement can look like in practice: part-time work, term-time work, job-sharing, flexitime, compressed hours, or remote working. The Act defines it broadly as an arrangement where your working hours or pattern is adjusted.

Ask on day one, start at six months

These are two different clocks and both are in the Act. You may make the request from your first day in a new job. But an approved arrangement "shall not commence before a time when the employee concerned has completed 6 months continuous employment".

So a new job does not stop you asking, it only sets the earliest start. And if you left the same employer and came back within 26 weeks, the Act bridges the gap: your earlier service counts as continuous with the later service, which can put the six months behind you sooner than you would expect.

The timing trap, and it is arithmetic rather than bad faith

This is the part that catches parents, and it comes from reading two provisions together that are never printed together.

Your side. The request must be submitted as soon as reasonably practicable and not later than 8 weeks before the proposed commencement.

Their side. The employer must consider it and respond as soon as reasonably practicable and not later than 4 weeks after receipt. But where the employer is having difficulty assessing whether the request is viable, they may extend that 4 weeks by a further period not exceeding 8 weeks, by telling you so in writing.

Put the two together. If you file exactly 8 weeks before the date you want to start, and your employer takes the extension, the answer can lawfully arrive up to 12 weeks after you asked, which is four weeks after the date you proposed to begin. Nobody has broken a rule. You have simply run out of runway.

The fix is free and it is the single most useful thing on this page: treat 8 weeks as the legal floor and not the plan. File twelve or fourteen weeks ahead and the extension cannot cost you your start date. The Department has itself noticed this: among the next steps in the March 2026 review is a request to the Workplace Relations Commission to revise the Code of Practice to clarify the timelines set out in the legislation.

Work out your dates, and the worst case

Put in the date you want the arrangement to start. This works out your filing deadline, the date their 4 weeks expires, and the worst case if they take the full extension. Add your child's date of birth to see the date the arrangement has to end by. It stays on your device.

The date you want the arrangement to start

The date you filed, or plan to file (optional)

Your child's date of birth (optional)

Does your child have a disability or long-term illness? No Yes

Work out the dates

This applies the deadlines in the Act to the dates you type, on your device. It is not a request and it does not notify anyone. The decision is your employer's, and a complaint about how it was handled goes to the Workplace Relations Commission. Confirm the rules on Citizens Information.

What the request has to contain

The Act is specific, and a request that misses an element is a request an employer can legitimately send back. It must:

• be in writing and signed by you,
• specify the form of the arrangement you are asking for, and
• state the date of commencement and the duration.

Your employer may then ask for information about the person you are caring for. For a child that is a copy of the birth certificate, or a certificate of placement for an adoption. For someone needing care on medical grounds it is your relationship to them, the nature of the care needed, and relevant evidence, which means a medical certificate from a registered medical practitioner or other evidence the employer may reasonably require.

You can also change your mind: before the agreement is signed, you may withdraw the request by signed notice in writing. And there are templates for all of this in Section 3 of the WRC Code of Practice, which is the document employers are told to work from.

What nobody can review, and what you can actually enforce

Here is the limit of the right, stated in the Act itself rather than inferred. Where a dispute reaches the Workplace Relations Commission or the Labour Court, the adjudication officer or the Court "shall not assess the merits of":

• the employer's decision after considering your request,
• the refusal, or the reasons given for it,
• a decision to terminate an approved arrangement, or the grounds given, and
• a refusal of an early return, or the alternative date proposed.

Read that plainly: if you are refused for a reason you believe is weak, unfair or simply wrong, there is no forum that will weigh the reason. That is not a gap in the law, it is the design of it.

What is enforceable is everything around the decision. The same section lets the WRC or the Labour Court direct your employer to actually consider the request, direct compliance with the response obligation by a new date it specifies, and award compensation of up to 20 weeks' remuneration. So the things worth keeping a record of are the procedural ones: the date you filed, whether a written decision arrived, whether it arrived inside 4 weeks or a properly notified extension, and whether the refusal actually gave reasons.

One more lever, and it is the reason the Code of Practice matters. The Work Life Balance Act provides that the Code is admissible in evidence in proceedings before a court, the Labour Court or an adjudication officer. It is guidance that can be produced against a process that ignored it.

A complaint goes to the WRC on its online form, within 6 months of the breach, extendable by up to a further 6 months for reasonable cause. Citizens Information advises trying to resolve it informally, then formally with your employer, before that. And you must not be victimised for requesting or using an arrangement.

It can be taken away, and you get 7 days first

An approved arrangement is not guaranteed for its full term. If the employer is satisfied it would have, or is having, a substantial adverse effect on the business, they may terminate it. The Act lists the grounds: seasonal variations in the volume of work, the unavailability of someone to cover your duties, the nature of your duties, the number of employees, how many other employees' arrangements overlap with yours, and any other relevant matter.

The protection is procedural and it is real. Before serving a termination notice, the employer must first give you written notice of the proposal, with a summary of the grounds and a statement that you may make representations within 7 days, and they must consider those representations before deciding. If they then terminate, the notice must summarise the grounds and specify the day you return to your original arrangement, which cannot be earlier than 4 weeks after you receive it.

There is a second, faster route: if the employer has reasonable grounds to believe you are not using the arrangement for the purpose it was approved for, they may terminate it with only 7 days before you must return, again after the same 7-day representations step. The arrangement is approved for caring, and it is conditional on being used for that.

Going back, early or at the end

Two reassurances that people do not expect, both in section 13F. You may ask to return early to your original arrangement by signed written notice setting out your reasons and a proposed date, and the employer must respond within 4 weeks, approving or refusing with reasons; if they agree to the return but not to your date, they must propose an alternative one.

And when the arrangement simply expires, you are entitled to return to the working arrangement you held immediately before it was approved. Asking for flexible working is not a one-way door out of your old job, which is the fear that stops a lot of people asking at all.

Remote working is a separate right, and it is everybody's

If what you actually want is to work from home, you may be reaching for the other right. Since March 2024 all employees have the right to request remote working, under Part 3 of the same Act, and you do not have to be a parent or a carer to use it.

The machinery is deliberately similar: request from day one, 6 months' continuous service before it can start, at least 8 weeks' notice, a written decision within 4 weeks, and the same extension. One difference worth noting is in what the request must say. For flexible working the Act wants the form, the start and the duration; for remote working, Citizens Information says to set out your reasons as well as the details of the arrangement, such as how many days and which days.

That is also the right the March 2026 statutory review examined, which is where the 94% approval figure comes from. The review concluded that the legislation is functioning as intended, with no amendments being made at this time, and its next steps are a national information campaign and a strengthened Code of Practice, including support for employers to give comprehensive and transparent reasons for decisions.

Who decides what

Your employer decides, and there is no State body that can be asked to decide instead. Nothing here is a payment, so the Department of Social Protection has no part in it. The Workplace Relations Commission hears complaints about how a request was handled, and its Code of Practice is the standard that handling is measured against, with an appeal from an adjudication officer to the Labour Court. Before any of that, the WRC's information and customer service will talk it through.

Work backwards from the day you go back

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Official sources

1. Citizens Information: Right to request flexible working
2. Citizens Information: Right to request remote working
3. Law Reform Commission, revised Acts: Parental Leave Act 1998, section 13B (who may request, the child's age limits, the 6 months, the 8 weeks and what the request must contain)
4. Law Reform Commission, revised Acts: Parental Leave Act 1998, section 13C (the employer's 4 weeks, and the 8-week extension)
5. Law Reform Commission, revised Acts: Parental Leave Act 1998, section 13E (termination, the grounds, and the 7 days of representations)
6. Law Reform Commission, revised Acts: Parental Leave Act 1998, section 13F (early return, and the entitlement to return at the end)
7. Law Reform Commission, revised Acts: Parental Leave Act 1998, section 13H (the review, and extending the right to all employees)
8. Law Reform Commission, revised Acts: Parental Leave Act 1998, section 21A (what the WRC may direct, the 20-week cap, and the bar on assessing the merits)
9. Workplace Relations Commission: Code of Practice on the Right to Request Flexible Working and the Right to Request Remote Working (and that it is admissible in evidence)
10. gov.ie, Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment: Statutory review of the remote work request provisions (the 94% approval rate, and the next steps)

Facts checked against the official pages and the revised text of the Parental Leave Act 1998 on 22 September 2026. This is general information, not legal or employment advice, and it cannot tell you whether a particular request will be approved or whether a particular refusal was handled properly. Your employer makes the decision; the Workplace Relations Commission hears complaints about how it was made, and by law cannot assess the merits of it. The 94% figure is from the review of the remote working provisions and is not a figure for flexible working requests. Rules can change; always confirm on the official pages linked above.

Related guides

• The types of parental leave in Ireland, and how they differ →
• Breastfeeding breaks at work: the paid hour, and how long it lasts →
• Force majeure leave: the 3 paid days for a family emergency →
• Creche fees in Ireland: what they cost, and what brings them down →
• Giving up work to mind your child: Jobseeker's, and your pension record →