Tánaiste Leo Varadkar says he 'intends to strengthen' remote working laws

An Tánaiste Leo Varadkar says he "intends to strengthen" remote working laws in Ireland.

The Fine Gael leader made the comments at the Select Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment, where he said: "I am open to having this legislation strengthened: I intend to strengthen it."

He elaborated that many issues "need to be teased out", such as "to what extent would the employer be responsible for an injury in your home office."

RTÉ News reported that Varadkar also rejected a suggestion from Solidarity-PBP TD Paul Murphy that the right to request remote home working is "not much of a right", and similarly rejected Murphy's suggestion that the Government's approach is "effectively turning the clock back".

Varadkar instead insisted that the requirement that "every business should have a remote working policy" is beneficial, and allows for appeals to the Workplace Relations Commission.

"Maybe 13 conditions [to reject a request] are too many, but there can't be an absolute right to remote working," he added.

Tanáiste Leo Varadkar

Last week, it was reported that, under a new Right to Request Remote Working Bill 2021, employers will be able to refuse work from home requests on 13 grounds.

These grounds include: 

• The nature of the work not allowing for the work to be done remotely, such as in healthcare or retail
• The employer cannot re-organise work among existing staff
• If the employer feels there is a potential negative impact on quality of work
• If the employer feels there is a potential negative impact on performance
• Planned structural changes within the company
• Any burden of additional costs, taking into account the financial and other costs entailed and the scale and financial resources of the employer’s business
• Concerns about the protection of business confidentiality or intellectual property
• Concerns about the suitability of the proposed workspace on health and safety grounds
• Concerns about the suitability of the proposed workspace on data protection grounds
• Concerns about the internet connectivity of the proposed remote-working location
• An inordinate distance between the proposed remote location and on-site location
• If the proposed remote-working arrangement conflicts with the provisions of a collective working agreement
• An ongoing or recently concluded formal disciplinary process

Speaking on the Bill at the time, the Tánaiste said: "This new law will give every employee the right to request remote-working from their employer: employers will be required to provide reasonable grounds for refusing to facilitate an employees’ request."

He added that these grounds are "set out in the legislation" and said that the govt "will develop Codes of Practice to provide guidance to help employers implement the new law."

In related news, Leo Varadkar made headlines last week when he called on Russia to "demonstrate goodwill" by abandoning military exercises near Ireland.