There needs to be a massive change in the approach to remote work in legislation to formalise it as a legitimate labour entitlement and a right and to ensure that remote working is harnessed to support people and communities. Ireland needs a national target for remote work. We need to facilitate and support companies to support workers to ensure that the right and access to remote employment is available for workers across this country. We should not be reverting to them versus us, as has been referred to. This is about making Ireland work for people and making it work for communities across the country. Officials from the GAA recently appeared before the housing committee and presented their report about the future of the organisation and rural depopulation. It is called No One Shouted Stop - Until Now: The GAA’s Response to Ireland’s Demographic Shift. Bills like this and the one my party colleague Deputy Gibney is bringing forward are telling us to yell "stop". We need to support villages, towns and communities in order to ensure their survival. This is a golden opportunity. Remote work is a golden opportunity to allow people to live in communities, inár mbailte, inár sráidbhailte, ar na hoileáin agus inár nGaeltachtaí. Rural GAA teams are fighting for their lives - ag troid ar son a saoil – agus nach cuid den réiteach é tithíocht inacmhainne freisin? They are all interconnected - affordable housing, public transport and remote working. They need to work together. Ireland is not working for so many people who are going out to work. They are stuck in traffic and cannot provide care for their children and disabled people. This affects so many people and our Gaeltachtaí. It is not working, and remote working can play a fundamental role in ensuring people have more balanced and more sustainable lives rather than tearing themselves apart, commuting for hours and struggling to get back to children. We need remote work to be supported properly.

Sentiment score: 0.15