Mr. Dermot Mulligan:

I spoke earlier about the need for us to strike a balance between the employer and his or her rights, responsibilities and interests and the employee and his or her rights, responsibilities and interests. It is a matter of trying to find that balance. I hear what the Senator is saying in terms of his view on where that balance lies at present. We are trying to provide a legal framework to give employees, for the first time, a right to request remote working, to provide a legal framework to allow that conversation to take place between employers and employees and, generally, and this is very much to the fore of our minds, to implement our making remote work policy. We want to promote remote working. It has many benefits for regional and rural Ireland, as we have seen. That is very much to the fore of our minds as we develop this policy. We seek to promote remote work to secure the benefits of it which both employees and employers have seen in recent months.

The Senator raised good points relating to mental health and broadband access. In practice, those are elements we need to bear in mind from the point of view of employers and employees. Employers have a duty of care for employees with respect to their mental health and employees also have a responsibility. That is something we need to bear in mind. It is not so much a matter for detailed description and prescription in the Bill, the purpose of which is to put in place a legal framework, and the putting of that in place allows these discussions to take place and allows us to address the issues the Senator has raised regarding mental health and so on. My colleague, Ms Gray, would like to come in.