Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Monday, 16 November 2020

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage

Photo of Gerald NashGerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I concur with Deputy Farrell. More significant work needs to be done to improve and enhance the pay and working conditions of Defence Forces members if we are to value the contribution they make to our security and society more broadly. I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say in that regard.

Turning to the amendment, there is significant potential to make working from home, and remote working more generally, more attractive. I have been writing and speaking for years about the possibilities and prospects of that and how policy can change to support new ways of working. We will not all be saying goodbye to the bricks and mortar office, but it is about getting the balance right. About half a million more of us now work from home than was the case prior to the pandemic. Almost overnight in late March, many hundreds of thousands of people gravitated, almost automatically, from their offices to, in some cases, their kitchen table or box room, if it was available. Many of the measures and rebates the Minister mentioned in response to Deputies Canney and Naughten are already in place but have been underutilised for some time.

Where I disagree with the amendment is in the idea that we must enhance tax credits to properly support workers who work from home. My view, and that of the Labour Party, is there is an onus on employers to provide flat-rate payments to cover the necessary cost of working from home, and there is a cost. The burden should not fall on the Exchequer to support those who work from home but on those for whom employees work. That is an argument we will make strongly and we will bring a Private Members' Bill on the matter to the House this week. It will include initiatives to improve the security of those who work remotely and will update and enhance our suite of employment protections to reflect new ways of working.

It will also ensure that employers will have certainty regarding what their obligations to those working remotely are because employers have existing obligations in terms of the occupational health and safety code and all of the associated regulations.

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