Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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I thank Mr. Mulligan for coming in. This is very exciting because we have never done this before. We have had no remote working Bill or legislation of any kind. It is good coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic that it made us realise how much we can do working from home. It is really important that we bring forward legislation. There has been much work done on this.

I have a few questions and comments. I worked from home remotely full-time for 12 years and I know the pros and cons. I have long lived experience around remote working. What have other countries done and how has it worked? We could learn from other countries that have been doing this for a long time before us. I would like to know a bit about that and I presume much of the work done by the delegation was based on what was found in other countries. What was the best practice discovered in Ireland? For example, I worked for a non-governmental organisation, NGO, for 12 years full-time working from home. I wonder if the witnesses reached out to companies that are already doing remote working from home to learn about what they know about what works or does not work.

If the committee recommends workers could contest their employer's refusal on any grounds, how would that work and is that realistic? Somebody could be a block layer on a building site and request remote working, for example, so we must scrutinise our Bill because one cannot always expect to be allowed to work from home in every instance. We know that would be illogical.

I disagree with one of the previous speakers and it would be madness to be able to request remote work from day one on the job. If I am an employer and I create a new job, it would have a job description. If the job description does not state that the worker can work remotely full-time, he or she should not expect to be able to apply for a job and demand to work from home. There must be a bit of logic and cop-on. If a person wants to work from home full-time, he or she should apply for a job where it is offered from day one. I can see the need for people coming into the office to work for a certain period before an employer would know the person could do the job properly and does not need further training. Once that happens, the worker may be able to work from home, plough on and get the job done.

If the Bill is passed, we must ensure two elements are covered. We must ensure the working environment in a home is appropriate for the employee, and that will probably have to come down to the employer. That would be an extra cost on the employer and I would like to hear about how we plan to support the employer in covering those costs in some way. The other question relates to carbon reduction that this could bring. It is really positive and we must push on with it so that as many people as possible work from home and reduce our fossil fuel dependency.

When I was working from home full-time, it was really important for me to meet other people. I got involved in creating the first remote working hub in Ennistymon so I would have a place to go. I briefly experienced the hub in Cahirsiveen and I realised the importance of such a facility to somebody who works from home and may only get to the main office in Dublin once every three months. We would go mad working from home all the time if we did not meet people. It is really important if we bring the Bill forward that we take remote working seriously. It is not about letting people working from home full-time. We must give them the option to go to an office somewhere, hop on the Wi-Fi and have other people around them. That is from a social and mental health perspective and it is really important.

I welcome the Bill. It will be challenging to get it completely perfect and one can never please all the people all the time. It is important we bring a Bill forward as soon as possible to get remote working to a position where we can catch up with many other parts of Europe. We learned much during the Covid-19 pandemic so I imagine the delegation has learned much about what employers have managed to do in that time.