123. Deputy Sinéad Gibney asked the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment if his Department intends to review legislation on remote working arrangements in the context of the current fuel crisis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30948/26]

Sentiment score: -0.20

My question is in light of the current fuel crisis, which there is no sign will end any time soon.

Sentiment score: -0.74

I thank the Minister of State. I apologise. I forgot to thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for facilitating my going first. I heard similar words from the Minister of State's colleague a short while ago when we were discussing the strengthening of workers' rights under the Sinn Féin motion and it rings hollow, I am afraid. What we know about and what we have seen is just headline after headline about people being called back into the workplace. People are dealing with a cost-of-living crisis and now a fuel crisis and there are ways we can respond to that as a society. During the Covid-19 pandemic, remote working became something that worked for people. Yet, since then, we have seen it rolled back again and again. I literally just got a ping on my phone while I was sitting here, which was a headline published by thejournal.ie two hours ago about Aer Lingus calling its staff back four days per week. The Minister of State's numbers do not paint the actual picture. The 94%, which is a great result, applies to 70 application since 2024. Awareness raising is not the only answer. There are a lot more reasons people are not using this system. It is not simply because they do not know about it.

Sentiment score: 0.10

Essentially, what I am hearing is that the Government responded, it built a solution that is working and that there is nothing to see here. I am saying it is not working. I looked at the report by the Department. Although its conclusion states everything is working, which is what we heard again today numerous times, a few pages earlier it talks about the toothless tiger critique and states: "The qualitative findings clarify that this is not a vague or general complaint, but a specific and targeted critique of the perceived power imbalance within the current framework." That is my issue. It is laid upon a situation where we do not have collective bargaining so people are not coming forward to exercise their right to request remote working. They have no power to push back against multinational corporations, which at a whim can decide they want people to work two, three, four or five days in the office. That is the issue. Workers have no strength and the legislation does not help that in any way whatsoever. We could be leaders in this. That is what kills me most. The Government tries to tell us we are leaders in the technology space. We could be leaders in this, by tapping into this technology and setting the trend for what we should be doing in facilitating remote working to deal with crises right now.

Sentiment score: -0.06