Mr. Dermot Mulligan:

I thank the Chairperson and members for their further invitation to attend the committee today to discuss the draft general scheme of the right to request remote working Bill. I welcome the opportunity to do so and thank the committee for its work to date on this issue. As members may recall from our previous engagement during this pre-legislative scrutiny process, I am the assistant secretary and head of the workplace relations and economic migration division in the Department. Joining me today is Ms Áine Maher, principal officer with responsibility for employment rights policy, and Mr. Mark Doheny, assistant principal officer with responsibility for employment rights policy.

As I indicated in my appearance in February, and as the Tánaiste has said on numerous occasions, we have a listening ear on the draft legislation and are open to changes to it. As the committee will be aware, the Government’s remote work strategy was published in January 2021 and commits, under pillar 1, to legislate to provide employees with the right to request remote work. We recognise that the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in remote working becoming a reality for many of us, often quite abruptly. It is important to reflect on the valuable contribution made by both workers and employers during this difficult time.

People showed great resilience and flexibility in adapting quickly to a very significant shift towards working from home. We agree that the progress made towards a more flexible and balanced approach to our working lives should not be lost. That is why the Tánaiste and the Department have publicly committed to ensuring that this legislation is as clear and balanced as possible, in order to positively assist both workers and employers to adopt remote working practices.

That being said, it is important not to conflate the experience of home working during the pandemic with remote working under a regular scenario. Using a global health crisis as the basis for legally requiring employers to continue to allow all workers to work remotely would not be a fair, balanced and proportionate proposal. It is also clear that not all occupations, industries or roles will be appropriate or suitable for remote working. Therefore, it is not practical to introduce an automatic legal right to remote work.

We thank the delegates from ICTU and IBEC for their contributions at the second session of pre-legislative scrutiny. We noted that while both parties made very helpful and constructive observations, there appeared to be some divergence of views on how to legislate in this space. In this context, I emphasise that the intention of this legislation is to act as a floor-level protection to ensure that all workers, be they full time, part time or on fixed-term contracts, have the legal right to formally request remote or hybrid working and for their employer to be obliged to consider that request and respond to it.

It is not the intention of the draft legislation to negatively impact on employers’ ability to attract and retain talent in a competitive jobs market, nor to undermine existing remote working arrangements that may offer more favourable terms overall. We want all workers to have the right to request remote work and not just certain categories of worker. As the Tánaiste has said on several occasions, as long as the business gets done and services are provided, employers should facilitate remote working where they can. We also welcome the submissions to the committee from Grow Remote and Glofox. They gave personal testimony on the positive impacts of increased remote work, while also speaking to some of the challenges encountered by business and workers alike in navigating the step change towards remote and hybrid forms of working.

Based on our engagement with the members of the committee and taking on board feedback from our stakeholders, the Department is currently examining how best to strengthen the redress provisions and the right of appeal in the draft legislation. In addition, we are considering a reduction of the enumerated grounds for refusal. Our engagements with both ICTU and IBEC, in particular, have been constructive and informative to date and we are considering their inputs on areas including qualification periods, flexibility and impacts on SMEs. The report of this committee, following the conclusion of the pre-legislative scrutiny process, will also be very valuable in this regard and we will carefully consider its contents.

Remote working has the potential to fundamentally change the nature of where, how, when and why people work. This could, in turn, bring about positive economic, spatial, environmental, cultural and societal change for our country. We know that remote work could help to achieve a wide range of public policy objectives. These include increasing participation in the labour market, attracting and retaining talent, enabling balanced regional development, alleviating accommodation pressures, improving work-life balance and reducing carbon emissions and air pollution. In response to this huge potential for public good, these draft legislative proposals are being brought forward by the Government to make remote working a permanent feature of Ireland’s workforce, in a way that can benefit all.

I thank the committee for its engagement with us during the development of this draft legislation and look forward to further discussion today.