Dr. Laura Bambrick:

On the tax relief, to nobody's surprise we have that as part of our pre-budget submission. We made that exact point, that there is disparity between workers being allowed to make their subscriptions taxable versus the employers' subscriptions to their organisation. It was not looked at by the Commission on Taxation and Welfare. That one escaped.

On flexible working, the Senator is right. Two items of legislation are making their way through the Oireachtas, namely, the legislation to transpose the directive, the work life balance Bill, and the Tánaiste's right to request remote work Bill. As I mentioned, we were quite surprised that the Minister went with a stand-alone Bill on remote working. All other countries that have the provision for the right to request remote working have it as part of their flexible working rights. In our meetings with the Ministers and officials in both Departments, we have stressed that there should be no difference in the way workers access remote working, be it through the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment's legislation or the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth's legislation. The requirements should be the same on in both Bills. However, it seems very inefficient to have two items of legislation that could be done in one. In order to provide for remote working in the flexible arrangements, they would have to give the right to flexible working to all workers which, of course, we want. That would also be the most efficient way to do it and the way we would welcome.