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Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has vowed to examine budget tax breaks for people who work remotely, as he warned that there had to be “fairness” between working from home and in the office.
“We need to strike the right balance,” he said.
Mr. Donohoe told independent TD Denis Naughten that “we need to find a safe way over time that we can encourage those who want to work in offices so they can come back.” For those who don’t want to work in the office “or don’t need to, we can find a way that working from home is something that can be sustained,” he said.
During questions about finances in the Dáil, Naughten said there was not much equity for couples trying to climb the ladder to housing in Dublin or for families spending hours in traffic or queuing to try to find spaces for care children’s.
“We have a situation where we have schools, we have childcare facilities, we have streets that have not seen a child kick a ball for a generation in rural communities.”
The Roscommon-Galway TD said there was an opportunity through remote work to ease pressure on Dublin’s infrastructure and bring rural communities back to life. He said the government should aim for a third of employees to work remotely within five years.
Tax code
“And there needs to be a concerted positive effort in terms of the tax code to help people work remotely or combine work.”
He said properties with home office potential “are being acquired across the country” and a real estate agent in Roscommon named “Séamus Carthy now has 43 potential buyers on a waiting list for homes with garden space, but this needs direction. and government support if it is going to happen ”.
The minister said support was already available in the tax code, including a tax-free payment of up to 3.20 euros a day from an employer to employees who work remotely to cover costs such as heating, broadband and electricity. .
“Of course, in the context of the budget this is something we will revisit. However, I will point out that we need a balance in all of this. “
Over the weekend, the media referred to Donohoe as being privately concerned about the amount of empty office space in Dublin.
But he told Mr. Naughten that he was “publicly concerned about it.”
He said that many workers were starting new jobs and would not have the opportunity to go to an office to sit with their colleagues and learn from them.
“And I’m also concerned about what it might mean if we make and prolong a reality of many people who work from home and can’t access the kind of skill and knowledge development that happens when you’re sitting nearby and working with other colleagues.
Undermine
Mr. Naughten asked if the Minister’s concern about empty offices “could be a vehicle used to undermine the goal of combined work and remote work to shore up pension funds.”
Former Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy expressed concern about the long-term impact on the city center “where people may not go back to work at least five days a week, and that’s a permanent reduction in footfalls. “.
He said there was an opportunity for existing office developments to “turn into something else” and support Dublin’s economy that was being damaged by the “more permanent changes that people are making in their working lives.”
Donohoe said the problem was not specific to Dublin.
“It is a comment on the well-being and future development, especially for workers who are in the initial phase of their careers.”
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