Before the general election, the Labour Party indicated an intention to follow similar models of the right to connect in Ireland and Belgium. The reality is that these two countries operate different ‘right to connect’ models.

France has had a longer standing policy through legislation introduced in August 2016 for employers with 50 or more employees. Earlier case law exists from 2004 on this issue as well.

Ireland introduced a Code of Practice in April 2021 but this was not legally binding. The reality is that in Ireland, the Code has been a bit of a damp squib. Despite getting a lot of press coverage initially, a 2024 workplace wellbeing survey indicated little had changed for workplace culture. 60% of employees who responded said they felt obliged to answer out of hours emails and phone calls. Only 32% indicated that the workplace had any kind of ‘right to disconnect ‘policy in place and only 37% indicated their employer actively discourages out of hours communications. The Code has still quite some way to go to effect change in Irish workplace cultures. One of the issues identified by the employee’s surveyed was lack of awareness amongst employees as only 33% knew about the Code. The Code has only featured in a handful of Workplace Relations Commission complaints as a consequence.

Time will tell as to the form of the proposed changes (legislation or Code of Practice) and how they will impact on workplace cultures going forward. Having worked flexibly myself now for some time, I have certainly noticed an increase in professional email correspondence from lawyers in particular featuring messages along the lines of ‘I work flexibly, if I reply out of office hours please do not feel the need to reply in the same time frame’.