Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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29. To ask the Minister for Trade, Enterprise and Employment if legislation will be brought forward to ensure workers have a legal right to remote working following on from the publication of guidance for working remotely by his Department. [34903/20]

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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This is another fairly straightforward question. It follows on from the publication of the guidance for working remotely. Will the Tánaiste consider bringing forward legislation to ensure workers have a legal right to remote working? At the very start of the pandemic, I got a phone call from a constituent who told me that on the day the restrictions were announced, five laptops were brought into her workplace for the senior managers. The managers went home and the workers were left in the workplace. That case was resolved but it should not happen like that. A person should have a legal right to work from home or remotely, where it is appropriate.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Under the current level 5 of the plan for living with Covid, people are asked to stay at home. If people can work from home, they should do so. They should only enter their workplace if they are providing an essential service for which their physical presence is required. While we all look forward to the day when we are free to return to our workplaces, the Government wants remote working to become part of the new normal. This is reflected in the programme for Government, which contains commitments aimed at facilitating remote work across Ireland. In July, my Department launched a consultation on remote working.  We are using the insights garnered from this to refine the current remote working guidance and we will publish a remote working strategy before the end of the year. However, we must seek to strike a balance as the closure of so many workplaces has had a real impact on footfall in our towns and cities. We need to recognise that, depending on the job or role, remote working arrangements may not be ideal for all employers or employees.

A right to request remote working exists in several countries, including the United Kingdom, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Finland.  While the exact mechanics of the schemes vary, the basic concept is that a person who meets the legal definition of "employee" has the right to request remote working arrangements.  The employer is not obliged to grant the request but is required to give it fair consideration and provide a reasonable explanation if they choose to reject it. Certain eligibility requirements may also be provided for, such as a minimum length of service or limit on the frequency of such requests.

Currently, there is nothing in legislation that prevents an employee requesting the right to work remotely but I still think legislation is needed.  I intend to initiate a discussion on the concept of a right to request remote working with the Labour Employer Economic Forum, LEEF, and employer bodies at the next meeting of the LEEF sub-group on employment, which I chair. I will be interested to hear their views on what we can do to further facilitate remote working in a way that works for businesses and staff.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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Maybe I misunderstood the Tánaiste. He said he wanted to initiate a conversation on the right to request remote working but we all have that right at the moment, although probably not in this job, admittedly. However, in most other jobs, bar those where the employee's physical presence is required, people can request it. The boss can just say "No", however. Studies show that productivity has gone up but we also know that some employers are either nervous or unwilling to progress remote working. I have previously said to the Tánaiste that remote working needs to be recognised as a specific form of new work, just like shift work. Shift work is recognised with shift patterns and premiums for working outside of normal hours. Remote work is a separate form of work. I think the Tánaiste said he was worried at the beginning of the pandemic that people would not take to remote working. They have really taken to it. I take the Tánaiste's point about the need for people to be out and about and the impact remote working will have. I believe the vast majority of people will opt for a blended option where they will be in town sometimes. We should also be having a conversation about hubs in our towns and villages to ensure people can work from home but also be in their town and out and about spending money. That would be good all around.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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It is true that anyone can request of his or her employer the option of working at home but it is not a legal right in the sense that I mean it. At the moment, people can request term time or flexible hours, which is kind of what I have in mind in setting out a legal framework whereby people could request remote working of their employer and the employer would have to consider it properly and give reasons. Presumably the employee would then be able to take the matter further if he or she were not happy with the response. That is the kind of right we are talking and thinking about. From the research we have done on people who are in jobs where there is remote working, roughly 10% to 15% are dying to get back to the office. That may be for all sorts of reasons. It could be related to personality or because the person is living in a crowded apartment. About 15% are keen to stay at home and work from home all the time. A good 70% want blended working and that is the way of the future. I would like to create a legal framework around it so that employees have some legal basis and legal backing when they request remote working. That does not mean we can force employers to do it. Nobody is looking for that but we need a framework which gives employees some backing if they make such a request.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I ask the Tánaiste to start by doing a very simple thing. We very rarely hear senior politicians or NPHET requesting employers to allow their employees to work from home.

We hear a lot that employees should all work from home where possible but there should also be an onus on employers to provide this facility. We could spend all evening getting into why people's homes or apartments are overcrowded but the Tánaiste is correct that plenty of people cannot work from home. This is where some good work could be done with regard to hubs that would be based in villages and towns. In my area in Balbriggan, a place he knows well, there is a place on the main street and it would be fantastic to have a facility and have people in the town spending money on their lunch break. This can work as an idea for blended working. I welcome the fact that he is committed to doing this and we in Sinn Féin will commit to working with him to ensure this is done speedily. We need to place a little bit more emphasis on the obligations of the employer to provide this. This cannot just be a one-way street in giving people the right to ask. There has to be some sort of persuasive element for an employer.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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On the enterprise hubs, hot desks, digital hubs or whatever people wish to call them, we have a budget for this in the Department and also in the Department of Rural and Community Development. When I was able to get around, I saw a number of them up and running in various parts of the country, including flagship hubs such as Ludgate in Skibbereen. There is also a very good one in Edgeworthstown, County Longford, in an old bank that had closed and become a symbol of the town's decline. It was then transformed into an enterprise hub where people can work. As the Deputy said, it means people being able to work not necessarily at home but in their local town or village, having lunch on the main street and bringing huge benefits to the town or village. We really want to see more of this. It is very much part of what we are now funding in the budget and it will be a feature of the national economic plan when it is ready.