What Irish Employers Can Learn From Australia's Landmark Remote Working Case

• Published date: 14 November 2025
• Law Firm: RDJ LLP
• Author: Nathalie King and Jennifer Cashman

The Australian national workplace tribunal (equivalent to the Irish Workplace Relations Commission) recently made orders that an employer accommodate an employee's request to perform her work completely remotely. This landmark case has drawn interest from other jurisdictions, including Ireland where there exist similar rights for employees to request remote working and flexible working arrangements. In this article, we summarise the Australian decision, consider comparable rights to request remote or flexible working in Ireland and make some practical recommendations for Irish employers responding to requests for remote or flexible working arrangements.

The Australian case of Karlene Chandler v Westpac Banking Corporation [2025]

Factual background

The Australian case ("Westpac Case") involved a request for flexible working arrangements made by an employee, Ms Chandler, to her employer, Westpac, which is one of Australia's big four banks.

Ms Chandler first requested that she be permitted to work entirely remotely from her home ("Initial Request"), rather than attend a Westpac corporate office two days per week, as required by the company-wide policy ("Policy"). When Ms Chandler's Initial Request was refused, Ms Chandler proposed an alternative arrangement, to work two days per week from a local Westpac branch outside of Sydney ("Alternative Request"), rather than attend the closest corporate office in Sydney ("Corporate Office"). The basis of her requests was to enable her to care for and attend to school pick-ups and drop-offs for her two six-year-old children.

For context, Ms Chandler had been employed with Westpac for over 20 years. At the time she commenced employment, her role was to be performed on a permanent basis from the Corporate Office. Since then, Ms Chandler had a history of working remotely - either completely or less than the two days per week required by the Policy (e.g. one day per week during one period and one day per month, for a separate period).

At the time of the requests, Ms Chandler's closest corporate office was in Sydney, and it took approximately two hours to travel from the school of Ms Chandler's children to the Corporate Office. Of note, the children's school was a private school approximately 25-30 minutes away from the family home, in the opposite direction to the Corporate Office.

On 17 January 2025, Ms Chandler made a formal request for flexible working arrangements, pursuant to the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) ("Australian Act") - this was the Initial Request. Ms Chandler's Team Leader advised her on 18 March 2025 (which was more than 21 days after the Initial Request) that her request had been refused, without providing reasons. The following day, on 19 March 2025, Ms Chandler was sent an email which referred to the Policy and said, "working from home is no substitution for childcare" and "your arrangements for working remotely may change at any time at Westpac's discretion". Westpac later agreed that Ms Chandler would undertake a phased return to work two days per week at the Corporate Office by January 2026.

Deci...