157. Deputy Cathal Berry asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence to confirm that the agreed time-off-in-lieu measures and overseas reunion flights, approved by him in February 2024 under the working time directive, will be introduced without further delay; specifically that all members of the 125th Infantry Battalion UNIFIL, due to deploy to Lebanon in late November 2024, will be able to avail of these flights; and that all residential career courses currently ongoing in the Defence Forces will receive the agreed time off. [43237/24]

Earlier this year, I approved a management position on the implementation of the Working Time Directive across the Defence Forces, including a number of health and safety protections for military activities, deemed outside the scope of the Directive, due to their nature.

As the Deputy is aware, responsibility for developing the legislative mechanism to remove the blanket exemption from that Act lies with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (DETE). To that end, at official level there has been extensive formal engagement between the Departments in the intervening months and between Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment officials with the Office of the Attorney General.

I am pleased to report that my colleague, and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Peter Burke, TD, has recently confirmed that the blanket exemption in the Organisation of Working Time Act, for the Defence Forces, can be removed by way of a Statutory Instrument through the European Communities Act.

Furthermore, my colleague intends to have this Regulation enacted by year-end.

As part of the introduction of the Working Time Directive measures, additional health and safety protections will be provided to Defence Force Members for specific activities which will continue to be exempted. For future overseas deployments, once the legislation is enacted, I have approved the provision of one return commercial home-reunion flight to Ireland in respect of an operational tour of duty of six months, where the security assessment by the military authorities determines that the individual cannot avail of leave in-theatre.

In addition, I have approved time off in lieu (TOIL) measures for activities deemed to be outside the scope of the Directive. The codification of the TOIL measures in Defence Forces Regulation which will give members of the Defence Forces engaging in activities which are outside the scope of the Directive, certainty of their entitlement to the compensatory time off. TOIL arrangements for certain training courses, deemed to be exempted from the provisions of the Directive, will be incorporated into the respective training syllabi.

These additional protections for exempted activities will be introduced as part of the overall Working Time Directive implementation package.

As set out above it is anticipated that the necessary legislation to remove the blanket exemption will be enacted by the end of the year, that being so, the additional protections will also be implemented at this time.