I thank Deputy Lawlor for tabling the Bill, which would represent significant improvements on the current situation whereby workers have no right at all to remote working. What Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael legislated for was a right for employers to refuse reasonable remote working requests. I was on the enterprise committee at the time when the Government Bill went through. ICTU came in and told us the Government's law was utterly pointless. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael knew exactly what they were doing in bringing in totally pointless legislation that was effectively written by IBEC. The responsible Minister at that time was Leo Varadkar. He is now going around portraying himself as a kind of progressive champion of workers' rights and other causes but that is not what he did when he was in office. He actually misled the committee at that time by claiming that the right of appeal to the WRC was not intended to be a solely procedural right and that a reason for refusal must be valid. He said that it would not be a case of an employer just ticking a box and saying "No", but that is precisely what the legislation provides for. It is precisely what has happened and Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael knew this at the time. The Labour Party's Bill would much improve the situation because it would give workers the right to work remotely where reasonably practicable and it sets out only limited grounds for refusal. That is what workers need. I would still argue that the Bill has too many concessions to employers. If an employer refuses a request unreasonably, one option in the Bill is to resolve the dispute by getting the employer to pay one month's wages in compensation. One month's wages for someone spending the rest of their working life at that company is not a lot when commuting in heavy traffic for hours every day and only seeing their kids for a few minutes before they go to bed is the reality for so many working families today and is completely unnecessary. The right to remote working should be made part of the Government's obligations to cut emissions by half by 2030 under the climate Act. We had an excellent briefing yesterday by the Climate and Health Alliance, which spoke about how important it is for people's health to cut down on air pollution from traffic. More remote working would mean fewer kids with asthma and fewer older people suffering from COPD. It would be a win-win for almost everyone, apart from the David Brents and Denis O'Briens of the world who want all of their worker drones back in the office where they can keep a close eye on them and restrict any space for autonomy. Billionaire Denis O'Brien says that remote working was a mistake. He is a tax exile swanning around on a superyacht. We need a Government that puts workers' rights first.

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