Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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7. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he has engaged with the trade union movement regarding the draft right to request remote work Bill 2021; the measures could be introduced to strengthen the rights of workers under the Bill; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7014/22]

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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I want to know what engagement the Minister has had with the trade union movement on the draft right to request remote working Bill 2022.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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On 25 January the Government approved the priority drafting of the right to request remote working Bill 2022 and pre-legislative scrutiny of the general scheme by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment commenced this week. This is one of many measures the Government has introduced to incentivise and facilitate remote working. Others include the right to disconnect and investment in remote working hubs throughout the country as part of our remote working strategy, which was published last year.

The Department carried out a public consultation and there was significant engagement, which included submissions from both employer and trade union representative groups. These groups will also have their opportunity to address the joint Oireachtas committee. I will be interested to hear what they have to say and I will carefully consider suggestions from all sides to improve the legislation. This is only the general scheme and we will draft the Bill itself over the coming months. I am happy to receive feedback and suggestions on the legislation. My officials and I will also be happy to have further engagement with trade unions on the proposals and we had engagement last week as part of the Labour Employer Economic Forum, LEEF, meeting.

My Department is currently looking further at the legal issues related to many issues regarding the Bill and is taking further advice from the Attorney General on the matter. We are keen to enhance the rights and entitlements of workers but we also need to ensure a balanced approach that is fair and affordable for employers. We must also ensure that services provided to the public are not diminished. Similarly, we must acknowledge that not all occupations, industries, or particular roles within an enterprise will be appropriate or suitable for remote working, for example, construction and healthcare. Therefore, calls to introduce a blanket right to remote working are not realistic.

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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The issue the Labour Party has with the Bill as drafted is that the provisions state that a worker would have to wait 26 weeks before requesting permission to work remotely and then potentially 12 further weeks for an answer. That is 38 weeks, which is the length of a pregnancy. The grounds for refusal from an employer are so wide that the Bill is effectively meaningless. We want a right to flexible work, not a right for an employer to refuse it. This is why I ask what sort of engagement the Minister has had with the trade union movement. I do so because it feels as if this Bill is being written with employers in mind, and not workers. He will appreciate and be aware that remote working has brought a lot of benefits to society for those families that wanted to embrace it. It does not suit everybody and not everybody wants it but female participation in the workforce has increased by 3.5% during the pandemic.

Does the Minister agree that his legislation is weighed in favour of employers and not workers?

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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On a point of information, there is a separate EU directive on the right to flexible working and that pertains to carers and parents. That has to be transposed into Irish law in August and the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is bringing forward that legislation. I read some of the articles by Senator Sherlock and Deputy Bacik and there did not seem to be an awareness on their part that there are two separate Bills here - one that derives from and EU directive and the other that derives from proposals coming from the Government.

We are happy to look at the timelines; maybe they are too long. We are happy to look at the reasons; maybe there are too many. The basic principle has to be that remote working should be facilitated as long as services provided to the public are not diminished and it does not injure the business performance of the organisation. We are happy to look at amendments in that regard.

For Deputy's information, at a LEEF meeting last night, IBEC did not like this one bit either. While the unions may have been louder on the airwaves in criticising the proposals, the employer's side has been equally critical.

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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Nobody likes the Bill is effectively what the Minister is saying. I take what he said in good faith and if he is willing to look at the timelines and the grounds for refusal, that is fair comment. We will work with him on that but he will have to appreciate that the power balance in any of these situations very much lies with the employer. Workers are unlikely to feel very confident in going through this process if they feel it will diminish their opportunities for advancement in the workplace in the long term.

As the Minister will be aware, there are any number of family and environmental benefits to working remotely. The gender equality issue also weighs heavily when we are entering this space because remote working does benefit gender equality in the workplace. We are happy to work with him and we hope he can be true to his word.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Sometimes when a Government sends the heads of a Bill to a committee for pre-legislative scrutiny, it has already decided what it is going to do but that is not the case on this occasion. I have heard what the unions, employers and the public have had to say and I am genuinely willing to change this Bill, strengthen it and make it fit for purpose. I agree that 13 reasons might be too many. It is more than any other country has, so it probably is too many. The self-assessment tool might be too complicated and six months might be too long. There are very good aspects to the Bill as well though. The requirement for each employer to have a remote working policy is a good one. In some ways, that is the most important requirement because it means that when people take on work in a business or organisation, they know what the policy is and the fact that there has to be a structured and meaningful response is also a strength. That said, we need to be honest with people. What happened in the pandemic is that people were told to work from home because we were in the middle of a public health emergency but there have been problems. The issue of data protection is one that we had to set aside because there was a public health emergency but no member of the public likes the idea of their personal data being on somebody's laptop in a kitchen. These things now have to be teased through and they were not because of the pandemic.