Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The cost of working from home has shifted from the boardroom to the back bedroom. Many of the up to 800,000 workers who have done some or all of their work from home since late March can attest to this. Approximately 36% of the entire labour force is in this position. A recent survey by Taxback.com has shown that nearly nine in ten remote workers have seen an increase in household expenses in recent months. This includes broadband connection costs and more utility bills, such as the additional cost of home heating, which will further increase during the cold winter months. The question is who should shoulder the burden of this cost. It should not be the householder, whose home now doubles as his or her workplace.

The home working tax relief was a little known rebate, known only to a few before Covid-19 hit our shores. For many, it is not an easy relief to navigate. Some people have told me that they have needed the support of friends who are accountants to get their claim in order. Even if they manage to get their claim in order, the meagre amount on offer is hardly worth their while as it fails to cover a fair fraction of the increased costs associated with working from home.

I heard calls this week from some Independent Deputies at the Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach, for enhanced tax credits to support those who are working from home to meet their additional costs and to help to purchase equipment. This proposal got very short shrift from the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, thankfully, and from me. Taxpayers, including those who cannot work from home, should not be supplementing the bottom line of large companies that shift the cost of remote working on to the employee and therefore, indirectly, on to the State. Legally, as the Tánaiste has outlined, the employer still has an occupational health and safety duty of care to the employee, as some significant working time cases have confirmed, and in our view, the employer ought to provide the desk, the safe chair, the safe working space and the IT equipment to ensure that people can discharge their duties, whether they are working in the office directly, working from home or working in their local pub.

Companies have to pay their fair share and it must be made compulsory for employers to contribute to the costs of remote working.

As well as the clear financial costs, there are clear social costs to working from home, particularly for women, who still bear an unfair and disproportionate share of the unpaid domestic workload. Repeated surveys, with which the Tánaiste will be familiar, have shown the challenge of juggling childcare with work commitments for remote workers, which relates largely to the woeful inadequacy of affordable and accessible childcare provision in this country. This alone will not be enough. We need to ensure that parents have the time and mental space to be present with their children outside of their assigned working hours, and to do this we have to ensure that the lines between home and work life do not become so blurred that they simply merge into one. The right to switch off is a key tenet of our Bill. It will ensure that working parents have a better work-life balance and are never forced to choose between their work and family in their free time.

Our movement, as my colleague, Deputy Ó Ríordáin, stated earlier, has fought long and hard for the right to, for example, a five-day week and paid holidays. Advances in technology were meant to liberate us from the workplace; instead, the technology enslaves us. The machines were supposed to work for us, but for too many workers in 2020 Ireland and throughout the world, we now work for the machines. The time has come to clock out of the always-on culture, which is what the Bill is all about. This is the new frontier and we have to conquer it for the benefit of our society and citizens throughout the country.

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