Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for their contributions. Deputies spoke about the process both in terms of the work we have done through committee on the original Work Life Balance directive and of course the work that was done through the Right to Request Remote Work Bill. I am aware that a very detailed pre-legislative scrutiny, PLS, process was undertaken and the detailed PLS report was published. In regard to the amendments being brought forward today, we are implementing the recommendations of the PLS report. I struggle to think how often I have seen such a clear implementation of a PLS report in legislation. In recommendation 5 the committee recommended that codes of good practice quickly evolve so that once in place refusals must be grounded in a stated policy from employers founded on these codes. Recommendation 6 states that the committee proposes the principles underpinning a reasonable code of practice should now be set out in law and allow the WRC to design how this should be applied in different workplace situations. We are doing both of those with this legislation. The committee advised that to accompany the primary legislation with the WRC, and we are using the WRC code of practice to elaborate on and encourage reasonableness on the part of employer and employee. We are doing that. In recommendation 8 the committee proposed legislation should mandate the WRC to draw up a code of practice in the first instance upon which the policies of employers can be based. We are doing that. Finally, the committee proposed that the legislation should align with the general scheme of the Work Life Balance Miscellaneous Provisions Bill. We are doing that. We are implementing the recommendations brought forward from PLS on remote working and implementing it. Deputy Funchion and I have had discussions on how much PLS has gone into legislation. I think a great deal of the PLS has gone into this legislation. It is worth setting that out at the start.

There will be a two-year review of this legislation. That is important. We are doing a number of new an innovative things here. The area of remote working is an innovative one. As Deputy O’Reilly said some companies now offer it from day one and that is a positive thing. We are putting in place a statutory right to request it. There will be a review after two years. As we know that review will also look at potentially expanding the right of flexible working, which is the right for varied hours or a shorter working day which currently, as implementing the EU directive only applies to parents and carers, it will examine expanding that further as well. That could be a potential further advancement of workers' rights generally and of course it will look at the provisions of the five days. It will look at the update of DSGBV leave and see what changes need to be made there. I wanted to make those general points.

In regard to the six months within which the right to request gets its statutory basis, that allows an assessment in terms of the needs of the work of the employer and of the employee. It may not automatically be available in every workplace from day one for a full understanding of whether a request for remote working meets the needs of the employer and the employee.

It is also important to remember that the right can be granted after six months but that does not stop an employee applying for it earlier. As we know, there is an application process of a number of weeks in which their application is judged. That can happen before the six-month period but the actual ability to take up the right kicks in after that six-month period.

As I said, remote working is about balancing the employer's rights and the rights of the employee. On that point, it is worth drawing a comparison. Deputy O'Reilly referred to the UK legislation and she argues part of the approach adopted there is better than the approach being adopted here. It is worth contrasting the UK proposals with our own. Our own proposals contain no statutory grounds for refusal, and that was in the original proposal on remote working, with the 13 reasons. Now, we have no statutory grounds for refusal, unlike the UK legislation, which has eight statutory grounds of refusal. The Irish legislation contains an explicit legal obligation for employers to consider the employee's needs. That is part of the balancing test under the Irish law but that is not the case in the UK legislation. Also, the Irish law contains no limits on the number of requests that can be made whereas, under the UK legislation, that is limited to one request per year. In terms of the overall strength of our legislation, it stacks up well vis-à-viswhat is being proposed in the United Kingdom.

I will deal with some of the other specific points. On the definitions Deputy O'Reilly spoke about, “substantial adverse effect” and “reasonable grounds”, both of those will be fleshed out within the code of conduct which we discussed and which will be brought forward by the Workplace Relations Commission. In terms of the ask on the location, some remote working requests will probably be granted in terms of also having reasonable access to the office if the employee is needed to attend in the office or in the workplace at some point. In that context, it is reasonable for the employer to understand where the employee is based and will be proposing to undertake the work.

Regarding the exclusions, this has to be understood in the context of what this is. This is a right to request. It is not a statutory right to remote working, and we recognise that. It is a right to request and, as we know, not all occupations, not all industries and not all particular roles within an enterprise will be suitable or appropriate for remote working. As such, there has to be some element of an exclusion provision. Again, that is something that can be looked at in that two-year review we spoke about earlier.

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