No excuses for delays over remote working Bill via IrishTimesBiz
'If we don’t act now to establish remote working as a key pillar of economic and social development in Ireland, we risk losing the momentum gained over the past two years,' says Tracy Keogh, co-founder of Go Remote.It was early on in what would prove to be the lengthiest period of heightened public health restrictions in January 2021 when the Government first unveiled its national remote working strategy.
At the very top of the Department of Enterprise’s list of “headline actions” to be undertaken throughout the course of 2021 was a promise to legislate to give employees a right to request remote working, a right that workers in many other European countries already enjoy in one form or another. It would be another year before the draft legislation would see the light of day in January 2022.
. After scrutinising the draft legislation, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment has recommended a number of revisions, noting that much of the public commentary around it “has not been positive”.’That is putting it mildly. As Prof John Geary and Dr David Mangan wrote in The Irish Times this week, the Bill does little to actually encourage remote working and rather stacks the deck in the employer’s favour.