Working from home

A chara, – The proposed legislation obligating employees to make the case to work remotely is completely back to front.

There were and continue to be sectors where physical attendance is necessary.

However, any employer whose employee worked remotely during the pandemic should be obliged to prove that the employee now needs to be physically present, not the other way round. – Yours, etc,

JOHN F CRONIN,

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Dublin 6W.

Sir, – Both the Government and the Opposition seem enthusiastic about enshrining a right to work from home. Might they be reminded that the workplace is not a democracy. A business is governed by the necessity to make a profit.

The ideas proposed by Government are laudable, but they are arguably unimplementable. There are countless scenarios where working from home will be not achievable. For example, any company enabling working from home which then identifies a competitor gaining an advantage by staff working in the office must be able to react accordingly, or they will go out of business.

Leo Varadkar, in particular, regularly cites advantages of working from home which remain untested in normal business conditions and over the long term. Mr Varadkar and and the Government would be wise to slow down until there is evidence to support their various propositions regarding wide-scale working from home. – Yours, etc,

KEVIN NOLAN,

Dublin 16.