Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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My apologies, Chairman, for being late joining the meeting. I had a Topical Issue debate in the Dáil this morning. However, I heard most of the evidence. First, I welcome Mr. Mulligan and the team and thank them for their work on this. In a normal situation these are terms and conditions that would be subject to negotiation, but what we have had here is a step change and as a result we have to ensure that a step change can happen in an environment where there are established contracts and there is no time for all the negotiation. I can understand how the Department is trying to steer a route. There are cost and convenience issues on both sides and we have to try to reach a reasonable outcome. There is a concern in the committee that with this refusal of it as not suitable on business grounds, very trivial cost issues could be offered and it appears there is no opportunity for an adjudication.

What I would like to explore with the witnesses is the role of the codes of practice. I know the codes of practice can be recognised by order. It is stated in the heads of the Bill that there can be codes for any section of the legislation. Will that include the section that offers the grounds for refusal? Will the codes be able to test and set up what are reasonable grounds through these codes? Could the codes be different for different sectors? One can obviously see how difficult it would be to provide a code that would cover both hairdressing and IT services, that are normally delivered remotely. The other issue is that if those codes can cover areas such as what is a reasonable ground for any one of those tests, be it cost, convenience, confidentiality, commuting and the rest of the 13 grounds, in a complaint that might be made to the WRC, how would those codes be interpreted by the WRC? Could a breach of what would be established by order as a code constitute a ground for saying the employer had acted unreasonably and therefore the employee is entitled to redress either by getting his or her request or by getting financial compensation or whatever it would be? I want to explore how powerful a tool these codes can be.

There is a balance to be struck and it is hard to do that in primary legislation. I hear members say that 12 weeks is too long to decide, but it is a maximum of 12 weeks. If there are assessments to be done of confidentiality, health and safety or whatever it would be, one could see circumstances where it would take some time to establish that. The question again is whether employers use these periods reasonably or they simply exploit them for spinning out the process as long as they can and frustrate the request.

My central question is really to explore the codes and how effective they could be.