Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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432. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons employed in her Department who have a formal agreement to work from home one day per week, two days per week and five days per week; her Department’s policy in respect of facilitating requests by persons to work from home; and the number of persons who have made requests to work from home in 2021 and to date in 2022, that have been declined. [44584/22]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The core mission of my Department is to work for a safe, fair and inclusive Ireland as set out in our Statement of Strategy 2021-2023. Blended Working is a key part of our vision to build a more dynamic, agile and responsive organisation by supporting new ways of working, in terms of where, when and how we work, while sustaining strong standards of performance and high levels of productivity.

My Department’s Blended Working Policy was launched in May 2022 and the application process for blended working has been open to eligible staff since August 5, 2022. The policy indicates a minimum requirement for staff whose role has been deemed suitable for blended working, to attend at the office on 2 days per week, to ensure team connectivity and collaboration. However, given the diverse nature of the work undertaken by my Department, the number of days that staff are required to attend the office will be dependent on the business needs of each area.

Staff of my Department have been invited to submit an application for blended working before September 23, 2022. However, the application process will remain open for new starters.

As of September 8, 2022, 174 applications have been approved, one has been denied, 274 are pending and 20 have been returned to the applicant requesting more information. It is expected that these figures will increase in the coming weeks in advance of the application submission deadline.

The Deputy may wish to note that following a role suitability exercise within the Department in Q2 of this year, 1,268 roles were deemed suitable and 316 roles were deemed unsuitable for blended working. Some of the reasons why a role may not be deemed suitable for Blended Working include:

The role is 100% public facing and directly engaged in the delivery of services to our customers, and/or

The key responsibilities and core tasks of the role involves 100% paper based processing, and/or

The role requires access to systems that cannot be accessed remotely, and/or

The role requires a 100% on-site presence in order to discharge the functions of the role, and/or

Other specific tasks pertaining to the particular role that are considered by management to be not suitable for Blended Working.

There were no formal applications for blended working in 2021 as the Department was still operating within the Covid-19 restrictions in place at that time.