Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have an open mind on them being legislated for together. We did consider dealing with the issue of remote working as an amendment to the legislation that the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is bringing through now. What the Minister is bringing through derives from a European directive on flexible working. It is for parents and carers, whereas remote working is not just for parents and carers - it is for all workers. It is largely about where people work, rather than flexibility. We decided to do it as two pieces of legislation for that reason. It is probably too late now to put it in as an amendment to the Minister's legislation, but I can assure the Senator that we are not dragging our feet on it at all. I thought we would have this done by now. As I said before we were going to press ahead with five new workers' rights, this turned out to be the one that was the most complicated and that we found hardest to get consensus on. That is why it has fallen behind the others, which are now effectively done. We are very keen to have it published by 15 December.