Ms Maeve McElwee:

First and foremost, I might suggest that the code of practice on grievance and disciplinary investigations has been a fundamental pillar of our industrial relations and employment rights, so codes of practice can have a very strong impact. Senator Gavan might agree that that one has been very effective over many years.

When it comes to agility, it is not unreasonable that an employer would say that somebody must be with them for six months in order that they have an opportunity to meet colleagues, learn the culture of an organisation and learn things that one cannot write down on how we operate, what our normal methods of engagement are and then the opportunity to have the conversation. It is not necessarily a case that an employer cannot permit somebody with less than six months' service to work remotely. It is a piece whereby, if an employer had somebody very new or very junior, he or she might want to make sure that they were very well versed. For instance, when I think of some of our own team coming in, we want to be very clear that people have the training and background before we send them out to WRC cases and so on.

Senator Gavan says that an employer would then have three months. It is not an unreasonable timeframe in which an employer would have an opportunity to answer. I am not thinking of smaller microenterprises here, but of an employment where multiple requests might be coming in, and they must be sequenced against requests for annual leave, carer's leave, parental leave, adoptive leave, work-life balance and every other request, whether that might be for a career break, a secondment or a recruitment gap that an employer has. Where an employer has multiple requests and larger numbers, they must sequence all of those requests adequately and appropriately and to be fair and respectful to other people within the business where roles might fall to them in the event that somebody is working remotely. I think in particular of where somebody who is going on leave or on secondment might have supervisory duties that another requester may be required to take up for a period. It is complex, but it does not mean-----