Ireland's statutory review confirms remote-work request law delivers 94% approval rate
Ireland’s statutory review of the Right to Request Remote Working under Part 3 of the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023 has confirmed the legislation is delivering: 94% of remote-working requests are approved either fully or in part, employers report minimal administrative burden, and no legislative amendments are proposed. The review, published in March 2026 by Ministers Burke and Dillon, is now feeding into a Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) Code of Practice update and a National Information Campaign running through 2026.
The Act, which came into force in March 2024, gives employees the right to request remote-working arrangements from day one of employment (subject to six months’ continuous service before an approved arrangement can start), with employers required to respond within four weeks. The WRC’s role is limited to assessing process compliance with the Code of Practice, not the merit of an employer’s refusal.
Why this matters
For remote workers based in Ireland, or remote workers hired into Irish-employer roles, the review confirms that the procedural route is working in practice. The 94% approval figure should temper expectations that a request will routinely be denied – but does not change the underlying reality that Irish law confers a right to request, not an automatic right to work remotely. Awards for breaches of the Act are capped at four weeks’ remuneration for remote-work claims and twenty weeks’ for flexible-working claims.
The forthcoming WRC Code of Practice update will require employers to give more comprehensive reasoning for refusals, introduce structured internal appeals, and promote use of WRC mediation services. None of these strengthen the substantive right – an employer’s commercial reasoning still cannot be overturned – but they should make procedural failures harder to obscure. The National Information Campaign is targeted especially at rural communities, where awareness of the right remains lowest.
Context
The review’s findings sit alongside Ireland’s WRC Code of Practice on the Right to Disconnect (in force since 1 April 2021) and the Workplace Relations Code on Flexible and Remote Working (approved 6 March 2024). The Workplace Relations Commission continues to publish adjudication decisions reinforcing the pattern that refusal merit is not within its jurisdiction; only procedural compliance is.
Separately, Ireland has formally confirmed it will miss the 7 June 2026 EU Pay Transparency Directive transposition deadline. Implementation will happen on a phased basis, starting with pre-employment salary disclosure under the General Scheme of the Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2024, with no penalties for elements absent from Irish law in June.
What to watch
The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment will publish the updated WRC Code of Practice through 2026. Workshops are running April-July to support employers in implementing the phased EU Pay Transparency provisions. Any further amendments to the substantive Right to Request Remote Working framework will be debated through Ireland’s autumn 2026 legislative cycle.