Ms Patricia King:

What is required in the proposed legislation is that the worker, when making an application, would give a detailed outline to the employer as to how he or she would envisage the remote working and how he or she would order these matters in regard to the location and so on. Currently, under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, the obligation on the employer refers to it applying “so far as is reasonably practicable". The employer has an obligation, therefore, and that home space becomes a workspace.

We would have to draw guidelines on how that would work. It goes without saying it would be unreasonable for the employer not to know what was available in the workplace and what the circumstances were, given it is responsible for it. The guidelines would have to be more detailed than are currently available under the health and safety legislation, although I do not see that necessarily as a barrier. What we are talking about here is an arrangement in which there is a dual interest.