Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would like to explore that further. Ms Gray refers to it being admissible in a hearing. If the hearing was about an unreasonable refusal for a request for remote working which was brought to the WRC, would that mean that, if the employer had used a cost defence but it was of such a trivial nature and was not in compliance with the spirit of the code, the employee then would win the case? Precedent would then become established fairly quickly once the codes were published if they were sufficiently defined for different sectoral situations. Employers would have to quickly move to adopt a reasonable approach as established in the WRC. This is an important issue for us because if we are to change the primary legislation, hoping to get an outcome that strikes a balance, that is a difficult job to do. It would be better if the WRC had scope to test this reasonableness and establish codes that are flexible enough for different circumstances.