Flexible Work and Commuter Delays: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-21
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Richard O'Donoghue (II), Limerick County

I support anyone who wants to work from home. I support any employer that can facilitate working from home. I do not support legalising that it is mandatory that an employer has to make people work from home because there is no glove that fits everyone. That is my problem. That means that the people here could all decide that, legally, they can work from home. We could have people in other sectors saying that, legally, they can work from home. There are general data protection regulation, GDPR, reasons that people cannot work from home. There are different reasons that people cannot work from home.
We also have another side of it. Some people do not want to work from home and that is their right. There are employers that help people when they want them to work from home because they are actually more productive at home. In other cases, we have people with mental health issues who want to come to work. They do not want to work at home. In cases where employers work with people and it is viable for them to work from home and it is beneficial for both parties, I encourage it 100%. However, I have an issue with legalising it unless the criteria can be worked around for all sectors. When it puts all sectors together, then we will have something we can work with. However, what we need to do here is strengthen it to help employers to accommodate people who want to work from home. However, we also need to have the Internet connectivity.
I was on "The Late Debate" last night with Nessa Cosgrove. She said that Survey Ireland did a survey of 800 people in Dublin. It is a big place. We must look at everyone; we do not just look at one area. That is what was said on "The Late Debate" last night - it only surveyed 800 people in Dublin. The Labour Party wants to apply this to the whole country. It is bigger than Dublin, you know. It should come down the country and survey us as well. We would have no problem with that.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-31T01:00:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-21