Living in Navan, Co Meath, and working in Dublin means a daily commute of at least an hour and a half each way for Rose Lowry, who works for BT Ireland.

"If I leave at 6.30am, I am lucky to be in at 8am. If there is a crash or ice on the roads, it can take 2½ hours," she says.

The nightmare commute was what prompted Lowry, who is head of consumer products at BT, to start working from home.

"When I started working from home one day a week four or five years ago, it wasn't official policy in BT to allow home working, but more people are doing it now."

Lowry now officially works from home two days a week in the study of the semi-detached Navan house she owns with her husband.

"Before you can start doing it, you have to look at the suitability of the job to home working and the type of person you are. Can you work independently and are you motivated," she explains.

"I start work at 8.30am or 9am, never really any later than that because otherwise you slip out of the routine. I usually go out for lunch just to get a bit of a break, but I don't do anything around the house, because it tends to distract you," she says.

Lowry doesn't have children, but believes that if she did, she would have to have someone there to mind them.

"You can have them in a local creche, so you would save time, but you can't work from home and mind children."

She always works from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays - the routine is helpful for colleagues, she says, and it means never having to drive two days in a row.

Fully equipped with broadband, a telephone line and remote access to the BT systems, Lowry makes regular phone and video conference calls to colleagues. As she has a managerial role, she also does quite a lot of report work.

"There are some things that are better to do away from the noise of the office."

Lowry, who has a team of three people working for her, makes sure to schedule certain face-to-face meetings for the days that she is in the office.

"It is good to have some physical interaction as well," she says.

The set-up is good for work-life balance, she says, but it is important to be able to switch off while at home.

"I don't like logging on to the internet for personal reasons," she says. "It feels too much like being at work."

Lowry, who is from Meath originally, rented a place in Dublin when she first worked for BT, but thought that it was too expensive to buy property in the city.

"It would have meant a huge mortgage, and maybe sharing your home with a lodger."

On reflection she says working from home five days a week wouldn't suit her role with BT.

"And I would probably miss the interaction if I did it full time," she adds.