Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

662. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the number of persons employed in her Department that 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 that have made requests to work from home in 2021 and to date in 2022, that have been declined. [44586/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

My Department is committed to embedding remote working into the culture and practices of the Department. To this end, our Blended Working Policy was launched in July 2022 with a view to building a dynamic, flexible and versatile organisation, while sustaining high levels of performance, productivity and innovation. Our policy applies widely across the organisation and is underpinned by the Blended Working Policy Framework for Civil Service Organisations.

The total number of persons currently employed by my Department is 175, of whom over ninety percent continue to work from home, in the main, for a maximum of three days per week. There is flexibility built into the current arrangement to ensure that business needs continue to be met, as a priority. The Department’s Blended Working Policy will be reviewed early in 2023 in line with central guidance in the matter.

Staff are currently at the on-line application stage of the formal blended working application process which involves a number of steps. Consequently, no formal requests have been declined, to date.