Flexible Work and Commuter Delays: Motion [Private Members]

Deputy Ciarán Ahern

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes that:

— employees in Ireland have no right to flexible and remote work, only a right to request it from their employer;

— more workers are being forced back to the office, with some large employers, including in the public sector, moving to increase the number of days per week that must be spent in the workplace;

— in a recent study by INRIX, Dublin ranked as the 11th most congested city in the world, and the third worst in Europe;

— commuters and drivers now experience significant traffic delays, whether through cities like Galway, on roads like the N40 and N25 in Cork, or on arterial routes into Dublin, such as the M1, M4, M7/N7 and M11;

— Transport Infrastructure Ireland has said there is almost nothing it can do to address traffic gridlock on the M50, and that it is at capacity;

— more frequent Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART) services, and increased capacity on existing routes, has been delayed due to supply issues with new battery trains, with a knock-on impact on other planned network improvements;

— public transport projects with planning permission are not progressing due to a lack of political will to provide funds, including DART+ South West, now paused at least four years to beyond 2030, and Luas Finglas delayed until 2029;

— commuters cannot rely on bus services to arrive when scheduled, bus lanes are not properly policed, active travel alternatives are not safe, and congestion is worsening;

— delivery of active travel infrastructure to encourage cycling and walking is too slow and inconsistent, and the level of investment is falling as a proportion of the transport budget;

— traffic congestion leads to increased air pollution and poses a significant public health risk; and

— transport is the biggest source of energy demand and the second largest source of emissions in Ireland, which must halve by 2030, and required a decrease of 12.4 per cent in both 2024 and 2025 to meet the sectoral emission ceiling in the first carbon budget, which will not be achieved, with projected reductions of only 1.3 per cent and 2 per cent respectively in those years;

recognises that the lack of a right to flexible and remote work, and the failure to provide reliable and accessible active travel alternatives and public transport, particularly in rural Ireland, is forcing more and more workers to rely on private vehicles to reach their place of work, leading to increased congestion and unnecessary carbon emissions; and

calls on the Government to:

— introduce a real right for employees to flexible and remote work, where it is reasonably practicable;

— ensure that the public service leads by example so that workers are not forced back to the office when their work can be carried out remotely;

— launch a new Operation Free Flow to address congestion, that includes:

— a rapid response team in situ on all arterial routes into the M50, starting with the M7/N7, to respond to road traffic incidents;

— the immediate progression of the M4 Bus Priority Lane project, and rollout of this initiative to other routes including the M9 and M7;

— a new campaign to improve driver behaviour on our roads and increased roads policing; and

— a real time app on traffic updates for commuters, and improved reporting of incidents to local and national media;

— urgently introduce an action plan to improve public transport services over the next 12 months, including measures to:

— provide more early morning and late-night trains, and increase the frequency of services into Dublin and other cities;

— introduce additional train carriages, and explore all options to increase public transport capacity;

— fast track the delivery of park and ride/share facilities in cities and outside the greater Dublin area;

— introduce automatic number plate recognition cameras, to enforce the rules of the road at junctions and bus gates, and ensure bus lanes are properly policed;

— improve the reliability of bus timetables, real time information displays, and the Transport for Ireland App; and

— require the National Transport Authority to introduce contactless payment, and guarantee accessibility for people with disabilities on public transport services within 12 months;

— reverse the decision to delay DART+ South West and Luas Finglas, and prioritise the rollout of public transport projects including additional Local Link services, Bus Connects, and active travel infrastructure, including quick-build segregated cycle lanes throughout Dublin city and county; and

— prioritise the rollout of new Luas lines in Cork, Galway, and Dublin, and the improvement and development of new regional and suburban rail links, including to transport hubs such as Shannon Airport and Rosslare Europort, on the Western rail corridor, and to towns like Navan.

I move the motion on behalf of the Labour Party. My colleague, Deputy Wall, was meant to lead on this motion but rather ironically - or perhaps appropriately - he is stuck in traffic right now coming in from Athy. Apparently he has been there for three and a half hours.

This is a timely motion. The M50 cuts through my constituency and anyone unfortunate enough to have to rely on it to get to work in the morning knows it is an absolute nightmare. The same is true in the evening. It is bumper-to-bumper congestion day in, day out. This has obvious knock-on effects for roads across Dublin city and arterial routes into the capital, including the M7 and N7, as Deputy Wall can attest to later.

While various solutions have been proposed and implemented over the years, none has delivered lasting relief to the congestion. The additional lanes added to certain stretches of the M50 completed in 2010 helped temporarily but ultimately encouraged more cars onto the motorway - the well-known phenomenon of induced demand.

More recently, the variable speed limit system has made little or no difference to congestion. It is routinely ignored by motorists largely because there is no meaningful enforcement mechanism even though the system is now legally binding. TII, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, has been clear that without a change in Government policy, all of the available options have been exhausted for the M50. We know how fragile the system is. A single incident on the M50 can bring the entire city to a standstill as happened just before Christmas.

As noted in the motion, Dublin is now the third most congested city in Europe and the 11th most congested city in the world. That is a staggering statistic. I am fortunate enough to be able to cycle to work and as I pass rows of stationary traffic on my way to and from Leinster House, I often ask myself how many of those people genuinely need to be sitting in their cars. How many are driving into an office in the city or elsewhere to do work that could just as easily and just as productively be done from home? I would be willing to bet it is a sizeable proportion. There is little doubt in my mind or among my Labour Party colleagues that the absence of a real, meaningful right to flexible and remote work is contributing significantly to congestion across Dublin and the wider greater Dublin area.

We are witnessing a rollback on one of the few genuinely positive legacies of the Covid pandemic. People were forced to work from home at that time and the world did not collapse. Businesses continued to operate and profits largely remained intact. Study after study has demonstrated the positive impact of remote and flexible working on productivity. Despite this evidence, we see large corporations, including AIB and major tech and finance firms, issuing blanket return-to-office mandates. More worryingly still, public bodies have followed suit. Enterprise Ireland's recent reversal of its remote working policy is a prime example. I commend Fórsa on pushing back against these regressive moves, which lack justification and often lack any consultation with staff on them. This is fundamentally a workers' rights issue and a quality-of-life issue.

People are spending hours every week stuck in traffic, time that could be spent with family, pursuing hobbies or simply living healthier lives. Almost anything would be a better use of that time. Even modest flexibility such as varying people's start times at work would make a meaningful difference to people's lives and to congestion on our roads. Instead, people are being forced back into the offices and required to arrive at the same time as everybody else, creating chaos on our roads. This is something the Government could address almost overnight if it wanted to.

We cannot discuss congestion in Dublin without acknowledging the shortcomings in our current system of public transport as well as the state of active travel infrastructure. To my mind, the absolute priority in tackling congestion, along with the associated environmental and climate impacts, must be reducing our reliance on private car use. The only way to achieve that is by making public transport and active travel genuinely viable alternatives.

In that context, the sectoral investment plan for transport under the national development plan, NDP, was deeply disappointing. Crucial shovel-ready projects will not begin construction until after 2030. Projects that have planning permission and have gone through huge amounts of planning and consultation are being long-fingered. Notwithstanding what the Minister said in this Chamber last week about compulsory purchase order, CPO, processes and procurement, there is a clear lack of urgency from the Government in delivering projects that would do most to alleviate congestion in Dublin and beyond.

Even leaving aside projects still in the pipeline, there is a strong perception in my constituency of Dublin South-West that existing public transport services are deteriorating. While my support for BusConnects is on the record, I cannot say that the roll-out of phase 7 last October has served my constituents well so far. The replacement of the No. 49 bus by the F1 route has added 20 to 30 minutes to the morning commute for people travelling from Tallaght, Firhouse and Knocklyon into the city centre. Ghost buses, cancellations and delays are common on the S orbital routes and have become increasingly frequent on routes such as the 15 and the 15B. Dublin South-West has long been underserved by public transport. Most of my constituents have no access to rail, meaning every cancellation and every delay only deepens existing frustration.

The national development plan was equally disappointing in terms of active travel investment. In real terms, budgets are effectively being cut for active travel over the next five years and have not increased since 2020. This is despite the fact that walking and cycling are the cleanest and most sustainable forms of transport. By reducing investment in safe active travel infrastructure, we undermine people's confidence to leave the car at home. We also forgo significant public health benefits, including reduced air pollution. I would encourage all Members to read the excellent report, "Active Travel: The Magic Pill", from the Climate and Health Alliance on this issue. I recognise that major public transport projects take time, often longer than any of us would like. They cannot be relied upon as immediate solutions to today's congestion crisis.

What this motion offers, namely, a genuine right to flexible remote work, can deliver immediate benefits. We know there are thousands of cars on our roads every morning that do not need to be there. This is a workers' rights issue, a quality-of-life issue, a health issue and a climate issue. People's well-being and the well-being of our planet should not be sacrificed for the sake of outdated notions of corporate office culture.

Deputy Alan Kelly

I commend my colleague Deputy Mark Wall on bringing this forward. For anyone watching us discussing a motion on congestion and the requirement for flexible work, it is absolutely ironic that a man who left his house before 6.30 a.m. is walking through the door of Dáil Éireann at 10.05 a.m. Why? It is because there were accidents on the motorway and everybody across the commuting areas of Kildare, Tipperary, Laois and other areas was held up because of it. This was not planned but it is some statement to prove why we need to deal with this issue in the short term, not the medium term or the long term.

What is going on is insane. The motorways into Dublin and the M50 are car parks. Accidents do happen and it is crazy that there are not emergency vehicles from TII on the slip roads and the hard shoulder, parked up and ready to get vehicles involved in incidents moved immediately. In any other jurisdiction, that is normal. We need it not just on the M50 - we need more on the M50 - but we also need it on the M7, M8 and all other orbital routes into Dublin. We also need it in other areas such as Galway, Limerick and Cork. From my area, getting into Limerick at certain times in the morning and coming out of it in the evening is chronic even though it is only a short distance obviously because of the volume of people using cars and the lack of public transport options.

The lack of public transport options is real. Over a decade ago, Portlaoise became a hub for commuting to Dublin. Lots of people moved down there. Some people who worked here moved down there. A huge reason was the great train service. The biggest issue was where people could park when going to get the train. Now it has gone down as far as Roscrea and Nenagh. There is not the rail line capacity or the frequency of trains. There are not even the services because the service on the Ballybrophy line is so dire. I would use that to commute to Dublin but I cannot because I cannot rely on it and it does not meet my requirements. That is not acceptable.

We also need to ensure that this gradual push towards pulling people back into work stops. The right to flexible work and the right to work from home must be enshrined. Where it needs to be enshrined most quickly is with us and the public service. In some Departments and some organisations, the pull back into work is high and some of the people who are late for work this morning are people who are working for the State. We all know that some people cannot do flexible work and cannot work from home, but for those who can, we should encourage it as much as possible to avoid the issues we are dealing with.

There are other practical measures that need to be done with park and ride, bus lanes, frequency of trains, integrated ticketing and transport hubs. How come late night bars and nightclubs can have staggered closing times but we cannot have staggered times for work so that people can travel at different times as regards their work hours? Practical changes like that would help alleviate the gridlock that we are seeing coming into Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and everywhere else.

Deputy Robert O'Donoghue

This motion comes at a critical time for workers in my constituency of Dublin Fingal West where transport pressures are at breaking point. My office receives emails on a daily basis from constituents who simply cannot get to work on time because buses and trains at peak hours are completely full. Workers are being left behind at stops through no fault of their own. I want to share the stories of some of my constituents who have contacted me directly recently. One told me: "Again the impact of not getting onto this bus has caused huge impact on my employer, my personal life and me financially." Another wrote how over the past few years the service has got busier and busier to the point where there was standing room only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from their stop, which is one of the first stops. Another highlighted the stark contrast with Christmas week when:

... the buses were obviously very quiet and I got into the city in less than 30 minutes (to Westland Row Station). It shows how close Balrothery really is to the city and with proper infrastructure what could be possible.

These are not isolated complaints. These are just workers trying to get to their place of employment. Before they even begin their working day, the stress has already started.

Since 2020, we had a growth in flexible working opportunities that reshaped Ireland’s employment opportunities. It has had a really positive effect, especially for women. Remote and hybrid work options have driven female workforce participation to record levels, offering greater opportunities for career progression, improved work-life balance and economic independence. Yet despite all this evidence, workers in Ireland still have no right to flexible remote work, only a right to request it. That is not good enough.

By removing the strain of long commutes, the pressure of securing affordable childcare, and the expectation of constant physical presence in the workplace, flexible working has eased daily pressures for thousands of families. While these benefits apply across the workforce, they are especially significant for women.

If we learned anything from 2020, it is that not every job needs to be done from an office, five days a week. Flexible working should not be considered a perk - it should be considered a workers’ right.

I am constantly updating constituents about delays to the DART+ Coastal North line and how there is no increase to bus capacity, especially the 33A and the 33X. These are delays people have no control over but that directly affect their livelihoods.

Granting that right would ease pressure on our transport system, reduce congestion, support childcare arrangements and improve quality of life for workers across my constituency of Dublin Fingal West.

Deputy Mark Wall

I am glad the Minister of State is here today because he will know this is not the first time I have raised issues around the car parks that are the M7 and N7. I have been speaking about this for a number of years and An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach will know that. We have had a number of conversations on this and what we can do to solve the problem. This morning, I left my home at 6.30 a.m. and I walked through the doors at 10.05 a.m., having had to take a small phone call on the way. I am among thousands of commuters this morning who were stuck on the M7-N7 and, by extension, the M50 because of an accident on the M50.

Recently, I spoke to TII about the number of accidents on these roads. I want to put on the record that, in the three years before this morning, there had been 2,100 accidents on the M50 alone. Recently, TII officials held up their hands and said there was nothing they could do about it, yet commuters are locked into their cars this morning. What is really worrying is many of those commuters have been late - they have contacted me in the car while I was on my way in - for appointments, including very important appointments in hospitals.

I want to take a point made by my colleague Deputy Kelly about remote work. A lot of the people who have contacted us over the last number of weeks are working for the State. Over the last number of weeks, they have been told by various and many Departments that they must come back into work again - from two days to three and from three days to four - yet they will say that they can work from home and have been doing so for a long time.

What we need, and as outlined in this motion, is something that the Government does not seem to recognise: the right of workers to flexible work. We need the Government to recognise that it needs to lead on the right to flexible work and show leadership by talking to the various Secretaries General and allowing those workers to work from home remotely. Those workers do an outstanding job as we all know. I am sure the Minister of State and his Government will agree with that.

In the short time that I have left, I wish to raise a couple of issues. We have proposed a number of options for the short term. I know the Minister of State will come back to me and talk about investment and multimillion euro investment. That is something that we in the Labour Party welcome but the problem, as the Minister of State and I both know, is that these will take three, four, five, six or seven years. I will give an example of a project. The M4 bus corridor project has been going on for seven years. My colleague Councillor Angela Feeney informs me that the project has been ready to go for a number of months. It could have made a difference. The problem is that the legislation to allow the hard shoulder to be used as a bus lane has never been completed. The construction has been done but only after the construction was done did the Government decide we needed legislation to allow it to be used. That is what is going on. From conversations I have had with members of the Government, I know we all recognise what is going on in this.

We saw what happened during Covid when people were working from home. Productivity went up and everybody had a quality of life that so many of our workers in this country deserve. This is really a workers’ rights issue - there can be no doubt. Over the years, the Minister of State and I have spoken about what we can do. What we in the Labour Party seek is for the Government to recognise that this is an emergency; this is chaos at the moment. People’s quality of life is being affected and so is their productivity, day in, day out. The Government needs to work with employers and agencies to ensure a right to flexible work. More importantly, we are calling for the Government to look at intermediate and short-term measures to try to solve the problems for so many commuters.

Deputy Eoghan Kenny

I thank my colleague, Deputy Wall, for bringing this motion forward. The right to request flexible work is not even a half measure. It merely formalised the ability of a worker to request flexible work. Workers were not prohibited from making this request prior to that. This once again puts the entirety of the power balance in favour of the employer. The employer has no responsibility to accommodate flexible work for their employee. Does the Minister of State think that granting workers the right only to request flexible work is actually helpful to employees?

Flexible work is vital for workers. For parents, it is an absolute necessity. With childcare in crisis in terms of both costs and places due to Government failure to address the sector, workers need that flexibility for school runs, after-school activities and to actually spend some time with their children. For people with illnesses, disabilities and accessibility issues, flexible work opens up the job market. It removes the barriers of inaccessible workplaces. It allows someone who may not be within commuting distance of their workplace to seek accommodation that is suitable to their needs. Flexible work has benefited rural Ireland and rural economies. People with flexible work can move back to their towns and villages. This reduces the competition in the housing and rental markets in our big cities. People can spend more time in their localities and more money in their local economies.

Multinationals in Cork last year began rowing back on flexible work practices in line with decisions made in the US by the Trump Administration. These companies employ many people in Cork and across Ireland and I fully support them but we must ensure Irish workers have their rights to fall back on and that companies cannot pull the rug from under them just because some idiot on the other side of the world has a hissy fit.

Public transport must be better incentivised. So many of us, whether urban or rural, use private cars and the State must take action to encourage people onto public transport, but people living in rural Ireland often cannot do that. They rely solely on the car. No matter where you are in the country, ghost buses - buses cancelled without notice - cause people to miss appointments and be late for work or school. This drives home the idea that we must all be in our cars. A person cannot even hop on a bus and tap their bank card. The facts speak volumes about how determined the State is to incentivise public transport. Look at the car parks at train stations. Some are operated by Iarnród Éireann but more by APCOA and other contractor companies. If the Government will not reduce the cost of public transport itself, then at least make parking at stations free and leave Iarnród Éireann car parks in Iarnród Éireann operation and incentivise people out of their cars.

I would have liked more time on this. It is an important topic and one that I hope many across the House will support.

Minister of State at the Department of Transport (Deputy Jerry Buttimer)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"notes that:

— the Government is committed to the delivery of major public transport projects, as evidenced by last year's review of the National Development Plan (NDP) allocation of €24.3 billion to transport projects from 2026 to 2030;

— the NDP Sectoral Plan for Transport 2026-2030 involves a funding ratio of at least 2:1 in favour of new public transport over new roads projects, and for the next five years there will be approximately €3.3 billion allocated towards new roads investment and, at a minimum, approximately €7 billion towards new public transport investment;

— while the Government has allocated an unprecedented level of investment in transport, representing an almost 87 per cent increase as compared to the previous five-year period, investment decisions will always require a degree of sequencing and prioritisation of individual projects;

— for public transport infrastructure, there is circa €12.1 billion in funding in the new NDP from 2026 to 2030, and this represents more than double the amount provided in the previous five years;

— the funding in the new NDP will provide for the progression of a number of major public transport projects over this period, including the commencement of construction of MetroLink, Luas Finglas, the Dublin Area Rapid Transport (DART)+ programme, and the Western Rail Corridor from Athenry to Claremorris, as well as the continued implementation of the Cork Area Commuter Rail programme and the BusConnects programmes across Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford cities;

— in particular, the funding will allow Luas Finglas to commence construction within the period of this NDP, which is ahead of the post-2030 schedule for the project's construction commencement in the National Transport Authority Greater Dublin Area Transport Strategy;

— furthermore, funding secured under this NDP review will see construction start before 2030 on the DART+ programme, beginning with DART+ West, which is a crucial enabler of the rest of the programme and particularly DART+ South West;

— on public transport services, Public Service Obligation (PSO) journeys have continued to grow steadily, reaching a record 343 million passenger journeys by the end of 2024, and this represents an increase of 32 million journeys compared with 2023, and exceeds prepandemic levels, and a significant milestone was reached in October 2024, when PSO services recorded one million journeys in a single day, and although the full year figures are not yet available for 2025, early indicators show continued growth, with Dublin Bus recording 164 million journeys in 2025, an increase of 5 million on 2024 and the highest annual total on record;

— Connecting Ireland is another strong example of progress, delivering exponential growth in rural transport since its launch in 2022, with 185 new and enhanced services having been introduced, resulting in almost 8 million passenger journeys in 2024, and where Connecting Ireland services have been implemented, patronage rose by 38 per cent from 2023 to 2024, and is up by 165 per cent compared to early 2019; and

— in addition, €360 million has been allocated to Active Travel and Greenway Programmes in 2026, continuing the high level of funding which has seen €1 billion invested in walking and cycling infrastructure projects since the start of the decade, and over 1,000 kilometres of active travel infrastructure has been constructed since 2021, with networks of walking and cycling infrastructure beginning to emerge in our towns and cities, allowing commuters to choose active transport modes to travel to work and school; and

affirms Government efforts to:

— deliver public transport projects;

— support households and businesses through addressing congestion; and

— work to address Ireland's climate targets.".

I thank the Labour Party for raising this matter this morning. To begin, I will digress from my prepared remarks by agreeing with Deputy Wall that it is time TII sat down with all of us, not just to discuss the M50, M7 or M8, but the N40 in Cork because it is unacceptable that a whole commuter thoroughfare to Dublin or Cork be ground to a complete stop. I have raised the matter with TII and I will meet it soon and will raise the matter again on behalf of Deputy Wall and me.

It is an opportune time for this debate about the issues of flexible working and those faced by commuters in the broader context. I think we will all agree about the importance of developing a strategic public transport network and addressing the issues of congestion and emissions. I also welcome the chance this morning - I am taking this debate on behalf of the Minister for Transport - to discuss the solutions already being progressed and those that are captured as part of the wider initiatives across the Government.

I am tabling an amendment, although there is much we agree on and very little we disagree on as regards flexible working and commuter delays. On flexible working, one of the key actions identified by the 2021 Making Remote Work: National Remote Work Strategy was the right of all workers to request remote work. This right commenced in March 2024 through the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023. While the Government did not exclude any category of worker or occupation from this right, not all occupations, industries or particular roles in an enterprise will be suitable for remote working. As such, it is for each employer to determine, in line with legislation, whether it is possible to agree to a remote working arrangement.

Providing a right to request supports and facilitates remote working and supports a productive and more competitive business environment. My Department supports the role remote working can play in taking pressure off the transport network. This is reflected in recommendations to be included in a new transport strategy called "moving together", which is expected to go to the Government shortly. The strategy reflects the Government's commitment to further expanding opportunities for flexible and remote working and encouraging greater utilisation of remote working hubs, having regard to the potential for reducing kilometres travelled, particularly in commuter journeys.

The Government is conscious of the cost of congestion and the turmoil it causes in the lives of people. Analysis by the Department of Transport indicates that by 2040, annual costs of congestion are projected to reach €1.5 billion in the greater Dublin area, €97 million in Cork, €107 million in Galway and €22 million in Waterford. A multifaceted approach is needed to address congestion, having regard to supply and demand. On supply, the Government is making significant investments in transport infrastructure and services, which I will discuss in a moment. In addition, there is also a need to consider overall transport demand and options for optimising the efficiency of the overall transport network, with a particular focus on areas where feasible alternatives are already available or are being delivered. As I mentioned already, it is expected that the new moving together strategy will be approved early this year.

The motion also refers to delays experienced by commuters and drivers on our roads. To deliver on the programme for Government and our roads strategy, work on the first National Safety Camera Strategy is now at an advanced stage and it is expected it will be approved shortly. This will provide a framework for increased deployment of cameras across the network to assist with the enforcement of a wide range of traffic offences. In addition, the Department is developing the next road traffic Bill to legislate for camera enforcement and mobile phone and seat belt offences and there has been a significant increase in spending on public awareness, communication and education campaigns by the Road Safety Authority in recent years, with a ring-fenced budget of €18 million set aside for these activities this year.

Turning to public transport, within its first year, the Government published a review of the national development plan, which will see record sums of investment in public transport in the years ahead. Over the next four years, €10.1 billion will be invested in public transport infrastructure, with a further €2 billion being drawn down from the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund to progress MetroLink. As outlined in the sectoral investment plan for transport published last November, this funding will see commencement of key projects, including MetroLink, Luas Finglas, the DART+ programme, and the western rail corridor from Athenry to Claremorris, as well as implementation of the Cork area commuter rail programme and BusConnects programmes across our cities. I assure all Members of the House that, contrary to some recent media publications and commentary, the sectoral investment plan involves a funding ratio of at least 2:1 of new public transport to new roads projects. For the next five years, approximately €3.3 billion will be allocated to new roads investment at a minimum, and approximately €7 billion to new public transport investment. In particular, the funding will allow Luas Finglas to commence construction by 2029. This is ahead of the post-2030 schedule for the project’s construction in the Greater Dublin Area Transport Strategy 2022-2042. This will provide significant benefits, not only to the immediate communities, but also to commuters from a wider catchment area thanks to the inclusion of a park and ride facility. As well as this, funding will see construction start on the DART+ programme, beginning with DART+ West over the coming years. It should be understood that this is a crucial enabler of the rest of the programme and particularly of DART+ South West. The programme will provide thousands of additional commuters with quick, frequent access. The Department of Transport will continue to examine the potential to accelerate the construction of DART+ South West in the context of the progress of the wider investment programme in the years ahead, as well as considering the potential afforded by the review of the national development plan allocations in 2028.

Turning to public transport services, the National Transport Authority, NTA, continuously monitors the punctuality and reliability of and demand for services. I heard the remarks of Deputies opposite regarding reliability and ghost buses. The recent roll-out of BusConnects Dublin phase 7, which was responsive to the feedback provided in the interest of passenger needs, demonstrates the collaborative approach between the NTA and the public transport operators. I heard Deputy Ahern's concerns about his area and will bring them back.

It is acknowledged that there have been ongoing challenges regarding reliability and frequency of public transport services, often due to traffic congestion, driver and mechanic shortages or unforeseen incidents. The Department is working closely with the NTA to try to address these issues through initiatives such as the public transport workforce task force and robust financial oversight to ensure value for money, leveraging the Department’s public service obligation, PSO, oversight group. Further measures are planned to enhance the customer experience across services. Improvements to the vehicle location system are planned under the next-generation automatic vehicle location project and enhanced safety measures are planned with the introduction of the transport security force.

There are three aspects to improving transport accessibility for people with disabilities. The first is ensuring a universal design approach for all new infrastructure, and our ambitious investment programme will adhere to this. The second is addressing legacy infrastructure deficits, and we have also greatly enhanced the funding to retrofit legacy inaccessible parts of our infrastructure. We will maintain that increased level of funding to ensure that disabled people are able to just turn up and go. The third is providing supports for independent travel, and in this regard I understand the NTA is rolling out the expansion of the independent travel support scheme to Dundalk and Drogheda, along with Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim and the Louth-Meath-Fingal Local Link areas.

Turning to rural transport, the Deputies will be aware that the Connecting Ireland rural mobility plan is a major public transport initiative developed by the NTA to increase connectivity outside our major cities and towns. As Minister of State with responsibility for rural transport, I can say it has seen exponential growth over the last few years, with 185 new and expanded services rolled out since 2022 and more than 240 towns and villages connected to the public transport network. Increased services have led to exponential growth in passenger numbers, with almost 8 million passengers recorded across Connecting Ireland services in 2024.

I will outline again the Government's commitment to investing in active travel and diverse transport options to encourage a modal shift away from private car use, reduce transport emissions and alleviate congestion. This week, the Government announced its active travel measures, under which it has committed up to €1.8 billion for active travel and greenway programmes up to 2030. On Monday, the Minister for Transport announced, as I did in Cork, €360 million in funding to local authorities for walking and cycling infrastructure developments this year, which is a continuation of the high level of investment since the start of the decade. Deputy Eoghan Kenny will know how, in his constituency this week, we saw people protesting about the provision of cycle lanes, which poses a question about what is to be done and how it is to be achieved when a council votes - I think unanimously - to support the Part 8 there. With the projects delivered, we are beginning to see connectivity and the transport network improve, but it is vital that we continue to improve the commuter offering and that commuters choose every day to use public transport.

The Government is committed to the delivery of major sustainable transport projects and service improvements. Although it has allocated unprecedented funding to the transport sector for the next four years, investment decisions will require a degree of sequencing and prioritisation of individual projects. However, I am confident, along with the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, and the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, that the scaled-up investment in public and active transport, coupled with suitable and targeted demand-management measures, can help to address congestion in a meaningful way over the longer term. I thank the Labour Party for raising the matter this morning. It is an important issue to debate and for which to seek solutions.

Deputy Marie Sherlock

It is profoundly depressing and frankly outrageous to read the Government’s counter-motion this morning – a motion that cannot even bring itself to acknowledge the problems of congestion and chaos on our roads. It is a motion that does not even make a single reference to remote and flexible work. We have to ask how in touch the Government is when we see the dismissal of people’s very real needs and concerns. These are problems that the Government has brought on itself. The congestion on our roads is one of the many symbols of a decade of complete failure by the Government parties to ensure enough housing for its population. People must move farther and farther out of the main urban centres where they wish to hold their jobs because they cannot afford to buy in those centres. That is on the Government, including the Minister of State.

Congestion is a symbol of the failure of the Government to plan for the increase in population. On the one hand, we have a Government trumpeting an increase in jobs but, on the other, there has been a stark failure to plan for the associated housing and public transport needs.

Most crucially this morning, the Minister of State has failed to recognise the solutions we are trying to bring to these issues, the ones that are staring him in the face with regard to affording more people the right to flexible and remote work in this country.

I commend the Trojan work of my colleague Deputy Mark Wall and the rest of my colleagues in producing this motion, which refers to the problems, the responses that need to happen immediately and, crucially, the world of work and how we need to respond. Instead, we get from the Government a list of achievements and plans in place and no genuine recognition of what is happening and of the genuine demand among workers for a right to real and flexible work.

I looked last night at a very good document produced by the Government back in 2021. It is five years old now. It was visionary and forward-thinking for its time. It was about making remote working work. When I read what the then Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said about the post-pandemic world, I noted his view was that the world of work would change profoundly but that there was so much opportunity to bring more people into the workforce, including people with disabilities, and to ensure greater gender equality. He also referred to spreading more jobs across the country and not losing young workers to places abroad, stating remote and flexible work could play a profound part in achieving these aims. What has the Government done? Little or nothing.

A Bill was introduced in 2023 that did the bare minimum. It ensured that the right to request flexible or remote work would be a perk for good behaviour, available only after six months in a job. The Government put all the power in employers’ hands. We see it in the cases taken to the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC. The reality is that the Government has stood back and allowed its own Departments, public sector bodies and other big employers in this country to force people back into the office for three, four or five days, not trusting them and showing no leadership on how a different, healthier and more productive world of work could look. How can people be productive if they must spend four or five hours in the car every day commuting to Dublin, Cork, Galway or another main urban centre? The reality is that the Government has not taken the lead.

This motion was very much directed at the Minister for Transport, but he is also the Minister for climate. When we see what is happening with emissions, we should realise the right to flexible and remote work could play an important role in reducing them. The Government has turned the other way, and that is shameful.

Deputy Ivana Bacik

I commend my colleagues Deputies Mark Wall and Ciarán Ahern for proposing this important motion. The Government’s counter-motion is deeply disappointing. It does not mention at all the crucial issue of the right to flexible work, which is very disappointing.

The motion proposes a series of practical short- and longer-term measures that could and should be adopted by the Government to ensure better quality of life for workers, families and communities. It would also help our planet because it also emphasises the need for climate action. Giving people a real right to flexible and remote work is climate action. It is action that would have a genuine impact for so many people now stuck in road gridlock and congestion. It would make a real difference to emissions and air quality and provide people with more time for family, caring and community. It would provide people with disabilities with greater access to workplaces. It is deeply disappointing, therefore, that the Minister of State has not seen fit to address this.

My colleagues have spoken about the reality of congestion. Dublin is now one of the most congested cities in Europe. All of us listen to reports of congestion at Bóthar na dTreabh, the Dunkettle Interchange, Johnstown Road and all of the other places where there have been particular issues with congestion. We need to see these addressed and the Government taking a proactive step on investing in cycling infrastructure, active travel and public transport so people have genuine alternatives to the private car and we can address the reality for commuters and others across the country, including in my constituency, who are now facing the awful impacts of gridlock, congestion, poor air quality and climate emissions. We need action from the Government on this, not the pathetic counter-motion.

Deputy Jerry Buttimer

Deputy Bacik should come down to the Dunkettle roundabout. Deputy Eoghan Kenny will tell her about the investment in Dunkettle.

Deputy George Lawlor

Even the Minister of State will agree that the Government’s counter-motion is particularly poor and disappointing. The journey from my county, Wexford, and so many others, and indeed parts of Dublin, has become a daily test of endurance. Whether workers are trapped in endless tailbacks on the M11 or squeezed onto overcrowded trains that take much longer than they should, they are paying the price for a system that cannot and does not meet what they require simply to get to work. Hours upon hours are lost before the workday even begins, simply destroying workers’ quality of life. The commute is not just inconvenient; it is unsustainable.

People are doing everything right but the infrastructure around them is absolutely failing. No workers should have to fight as hard as they do just to get to their jobs. Hours are stolen from them and their families, affecting productivity and the very quality of life that we as a country claim to value.

We often speak in this Chamber about supporting working people and building a modern and competitive country, yet we continue to tolerate a system that is sapping the energy of workers and punishing them simply for trying to earn a living.

Flexible working is not, and certainly should not be, a luxury. It must not be a favour granted by employers when convenient; it is a practical, evidence-based response to the realities of modern life in this country. It would most certainly reduce congestion, lower stress, improve employee retention, give people better access to employment and allow people time to become immersed in their communities rather than festering in tailback after tailback. When people have the ability to work remotely or stagger their hours, we see fewer cars on the roads and a transport network that can, if invested in, function as originally intended.

We must not keep asking workers to absorb the cost of the inefficiencies created by the State itself. We must not keep pretending long commutes are an unavoidable fact of Irish life; they are not. They are a policy failure, and we in this Chamber have the power to correct it.

This motion is about dignity. It is about recognising that time is a finite resource and that no worker should be forced to sacrifice it unnecessarily. It is also about creating a future for workers in which flexibility is the norm and not some sort of bequest from the boss. This motion seeks to create a workplace measured by output rather than a person’s presence, and circumstances in which our roads and public transport infrastructure are supported by smart policies rather than held back and stifled by outdated rules of management.

If we want an Ireland that is resilient, innovative and humane, we must make decisions that facilitate the workers who contribute greatly to our economy. Flexible work should not just be an option: it should be an obligation. It is time to deliver a system that respects the people who keep this country moving. With the Government totally failing to address the right to remote work in its counter-motion, we in the Labour Party are left with no choice but to bring forward legislation now on a real right to remote work. We will publish that legislation next week.

Deputy Johnny Guirke

Over the past few years, we have seen how working from home and the essential right to request remote and flexible work has had its benefits and the power to shape a fairer, more productive and more resilient economy if managed correctly. The Government is required by law to review the right to request remote working legislation through a public consultation. Since the right was introduced in March 2024, approximately 60 complaints have been made to the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC. This captures both the gains and the gaps we must address.

For thousands of people, flexible and remote work has been life-changing. It is not a luxury but a necessity for working parents, those facing long commutes and people priced out of the housing market in major urban areas. It has helped many to remain in the workforce and opened doors for people across the country. A right to flexible work is a right to a more equal and modern economy. The right to request to work from home was a drawn-out process, from the publication of the general scheme of the Bill on the right to request remote working in 2021 to the publication in the code of practice. At different stages, the legislation to deliver a right to request remote working was rewritten, amended and moved from one Department to another.

We had reservations and worried that the code of practice published did not strike a fair balance between the rights of workers and the rights of businesses. The code gives workers the right to request remote working, a request that must be underpinned with a detailed explanation as to why they wish to work in this fashion. Some of the reasoning assessed, such as the inclusion of the distance between the worker's home and their place of work, is an overreach. There is also a checklist of measures for an employer to consider for a request, many of which appear designed to take power away from the worker.

Workers must jump through a multitude of hoops to access remote working. Yet, these arrangements can be refused, changed, withdrawn or terminated with ease. Thankfully, the code of practice provides avenues for workers to vindicate their rights through the WRC. Still, we fear the code has afforded too much power to employers to deny legitimate remote working requests. For years, Sinn Féin has argued that the right to request remote working should be judged on whether workers can have confidence that it compels employers to be fair, reasonable and consistent in their considerations. We remain unconvinced the code does this and we will be watching the outcome of the review with close attention.

There is a practical side to this debate that ties directly into people's daily lives; namely, transport. Working from home has real benefits for our transport and road networks. It reduces congestion, lowers wear and tear on the roads and eases pressure on public transport systems. However, for many in County Meath, transport remains a persistent problem. Meath is known for its poor and unreliable transport links. The Navan rail line has been promised for years, yet tangible progress remains slow. People in Meath are paying significant tolls, with year-on-year increases, and the Government seems happy to sit back and allow this to happen. Congestion is getting worse. Just look at what is happening on the M50. The unreliable bus services in Meath, often described as "ghost buses", leave commuters waiting on the roadside for buses that never arrive.

Despite these failures, some operators have recently been awarded new contracts. Many constituents in Meath have contacted me as they are struggling to get a date for an NCT for their car. Cases like this make the commute to work harder.

Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh

I thank the Labour Party for bringing this motion forward. We share almost all of what is in this motion. I passionately believe in flexible working hours and the opportunities they can present. This motion goes to the heart of the daily reality for workers of the stress of long commutes, gridlocked roads and unreliable public transport. Workers in Ireland have no right to remote working. They have a right to ask and a right to be refused.

I am a pragmatic person and I completely understand that many jobs do not lend themselves to working from home or remote working. However, we need to have a comprehensive conversation about how work patterns are changing and how remote working can benefit not only the workers themselves and their families but local communities as well. We can have that conversation in a very constructive way that can benefit everybody. We are seeing more employers, including in the public sector, forcing workers back into offices, regardless of whether their work can be done from home. That is not right.

This is a workers' rights issue. It is also about trust, productivity and work-life balance. It can work brilliantly where employers and employees embrace the system. As was mentioned earlier, it can work brilliantly for the measurement of outcomes. This is always about outcomes. It is not even about outputs but outcomes and how that can be done. Systems have to be set up so that it can be done in a way in which there is confidence between the employer and employee. That certainly should be done. For the thousands of workers who are working remotely and flexibly, it has meant more time with their families, less stress, better mental health and, often, higher productivity. Yet, instead of building on what works, the Government is pushing people back onto roads that are at breaking point. Dublin is the 11th most congested city in the world. Commuter routes are gridlocked. Trains are overcrowded or delayed. Vital public transport projects are stalled or abandoned year after year.

This congestion does not exist by accident. It exists because of the Government's failure to deliver transport infrastructure, properly fund public transport and legislate for modern, flexible working. In rural Ireland, it is even more evident. There is no joined-up thinking between the public transport systems.

Deputy Conor D. McGuinness

There is massive demand for flexible hours and remote work because people know it works. It saves time, reduces stress and allows people to manage work alongside family, caring and community responsibilities. Yet, every morning, workers are still forced into traffic and onto overcrowded buses and trains, travelling at the same hour to the same place, even when the job does not require it. That lost time is taken directly from people's lives. In counties like Waterford, thousands of people are being forced back into long commutes, even though their work can be done remotely. This is a political choice, in many cases. The Government is responding to corporate pressure instead of listening to workers and families. Supporting flexible and remote work would immediately reduce congestion, cut emissions and give people back hours of their lives every week. The question is: who is policy designed for? Is it for ordinary workers trying to balance their lives or powerful interests pushing a return to the old system?

The CSO shows average commute times rising, with many people travelling an hour or more each way. The National Transport Authority has confirmed that remote working reduces peak demand, lowers costs for commuters and reduces carbon emissions. Despite this evidence, workers face refusals, withdrawn arrangements and constant pressure to return to offices. Across rural Ireland, people are paying the price for top-down decisions and chronic underinvestment. In Waterford, we have seen Local Link routes altered without local input. The Minister of State is aware of that particular issue. There has been a dogged refusal by Government to fund much-needed safety upgrades on the N25, N24 and the N72. Intercity bus stops such as Grange in west Waterford have been removed. Every year, the school transport system is in chaos.

At the same time, people are told to get back to offices they do not need to be in. Flexible work will not solve congestion on its own but it is an immediate and practical step. Now is the time for a serious programme that protects worker flexibility, reduces commute times, invests properly in transport and delivers a modern, low-emission Ireland.

Deputy Thomas Gould

I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward this motion. A lot of the time, we come in here and talk about issues that might be abstract or wonder if they really make a difference to people's lives. This actually makes a difference to the lives of workers, families, communities and employers. This provides a solution and a pathway to making a real difference.

In Cork at the moment - the Minister of State will know as he is a Corkman, like myself - the gridlock is unbelievable. People are forced to travel to work when there should be flexibility. People should be able to work from home. Employers should be able to work with workers to come up with solutions. Since Covid, we have seen the drive to get more and more people back to working nine to five. The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting it to change. At the moment, we have people driven onto roads that are gridlocked to get to jobs when a lot of them could work from home.

A happier worker is a more productive worker and a better employee. It is good for the worker, the family and the employer; it makes sense. Talking about Cork for a minute, we have total gridlock there, and the Minister of State knows this himself, coming from an area that is one of the worst parts of it. Cork is the 38th most congested city in the world, worse than London. How can Cork be more congested than London? However, those are the facts.

We then have a huge number of people being forced to drive every day and we have a public transport system that is on its knees and does not work. I will give an example. To finish on this, a freedom of information request I made stated that one in three buses in Cork is late and in some cases one in two buses does not turn up. That is not good enough. It is wrong.

Deputy Pa Daly

Workers and families across the State are being failed on public transport and worker flexibility. These failures are not abstract; they are the lived reality of people across the island. There are commuters wasting hours of their lives in traffic chaos, waiting for buses or sitting in cars as they inch through gridlocked traffic. It is having a tangible, real-life impact on the quality of life for people.

Despite years of promises, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have created a system that is defined by delay and stagnation. Major projects that could have transformed connectivity and mobility have been stalled for years. The MetroLink is a symbol of everything that is wrong with transport planning. It has been decades in development with projected costs of over €20 billion and we still have not broken ground. Dublin is the only large European capital without a metro and with each passing year, the failure to deliver that demonstrates how little concern this Government has for public money.

In another hallmark move, both the Government and Regional Independents have decided not to prioritise the DART+ South West and the Finglas Luas. The situation on the M50 is at crisis point but the only thing the Government has done is to heap further pressure on drivers by increasing petrol and diesel prices through the carbon tax. DART+ South West has been pushed beyond 2030 and the Finglas Luas is delayed until 2029.

In Kerry, I meet people who are losing hours of their lives stuck in traffic, particularly in Killarney where it is very bad, or waiting on bus services that are oversubscribed and do not have enough capacity, and the buses are passing them by. The Government is telling people to get out of their cars but that is not an option in places like Kerry. When students cannot get to college and people cannot get to work and when workers are left at the side of the road and are late to work, that is not an option. The cost of it is staggering and I applaud the Labour Party for bringing forward this motion.

Deputy Darren O'Rourke

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion and thank the Labour Party for bringing it forward.

The people in County Meath are in a daily battle for reliable transport. Our infrastructure is failing to keep pace with our growing population, leaving commuters stranded and communities isolated. Motorists are crucified with increasing costs of petrol and diesel and toll charge increases. The infrastructure deficits are comprehensive and critical. Since 1994, we have had a long promised yet undelivered Navan rail line and our public bus network is in serious difficulty. Routes from the 103 and 109 are systematically failing.

Services in Navan are inadequate. There were 20,000 fewer trips taken on the town bus service last year than there were the year before. Areas like Bellewstown have no service at all. Chronic overcrowding and cancellation are the norm, not the exception. Even where buses run, passengers too often wait without bus shelters and dignity. We know from media reports that senior Department of Transport officials warned that the Government's transport budget for 2026 will not be enough for any new services. That is simply not good enough. This is not about inconvenience. It is about connectivity, opportunity and quality of life. The right to work from home must be considered in this context.

Regardless of that, Meath deserves and has paid for a modern integrated transport network. We need urgent, concrete action from the NTA and the Government to deliver it. We need real progress on rail and a complete overhaul of bus services to deliver a public transport system that works; one that is accessible, affordable, reliable and safe.

Deputy Mairéad Farrell

The fact of the matter is remote working works. It works for workers, for businesses and for communities. Workers have really gained control of their work-life balance, businesses have been able to cut their overhead costs and workers and families are now far more involved in their local communities because they can be. I am deeply concerned about recent efforts to undermine these gains. This is a hit to workers across the board but workers in the financial sector have been hit particularly hard.

Workers of both AIB and Bank of Ireland were told last summer, out of the blue, of a new return to office protocol, after being hired under the premise they could work remotely. Both banks announced these changes without consulting the trade unions or workers themselves. Thankfully in December, the Financial Services Union negotiated an agreement with AIB that will allow workers to maintain their pre-existing remote working arrangements. However, no such agreement has been reached with the Bank of Ireland. Bank of Ireland workers in my constituency of Galway West are now mandated to work in Dublin eight days a month. That is an impossible ask for many workers trying to balance their family life and work, bearing in mind they were hired under the premise of being in Galway. I have met with the Financial Services Union and its demand is clear. It wants Bank of Ireland to engage in a meaningful discussion on this. These cases show the urgent need for better legislation on this issue - legislation that gives a right to flexible work and a right to a more equal and modern economy.

As we are talking about commuting, the reality of commuting in Galway city is, whether you are coming from outside or internally in Galway city, that it is disastrous. We have had a standstill traffic situation at peak times for far too long, for decades, and it is the result of underfunding of our infrastructure. We need to have a double track line from Athenry to Galway and it needs to be delivered now.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

I thank the Deputies for bringing the motion forward this morning and giving us the chance to have this debate.

Nearly 25 years ago, as a shop steward, I processed my first claim for what was called at that stage, "teleworking". It then went on to become "e-working" and now we refer to it as "remote working". It is not new and certainly was not invented in the past while. It most definitely was not invented by the Minister of State's former colleague, Leo Varadkar, despite his claims to the contrary at times.

Deputy Jerry Buttimer

I do not think he claimed that, to be fair.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

It really works for people. I have seen it in workplaces, as a representative and as a trade union official. However, at the time, when we were processing that claim, there was something of a paternalistic attitude applied to the workers. It was almost as if remote working was a treat or a favour the boss might give you if you were perhaps good enough but one that could be withdrawn at any moment and have the capacity to upend your family and work-life balance. It is shocking that the attitude displayed 25 years ago is still in vogue today with this Government.

There were nearly 6,000 incidents on the M50 in 2025, almost 800 of those being car crashes. That is nearly two a day. Some 60% of people in my town of Skerries commute by car. They have absolutely no choice. For those who do not commute by car, they get on overcrowded trains or stand and wait for buses, "ghost buses" as we call them, that sometimes do not arrive. It is past time for the environment, workers, work-life balance, productivity, communities and families that proper consideration is given to workers having the right to remotely work.

Workers are not stupid. The same as me and the Minister of State, they know what works for them. They want to do well in their work and they know they can do that by working remotely.

Deputy Johnny Mythen

I thank the Labour Party for bringing this motion forward today.

Flexible work, where practical, is of benefit to all sectors of society. The obvious benefits to employers are improved efficiency, fewer sick days, savings on transport, energy bills, facility provisions, car parking and security. Considering the modern and fast pace of life, and the rapid advance of AI technology, flexible hours and remote working make sense.

The influence of remote working on the workforce has added greatly to the quality and value of family life by creating a positive work-life balance. It is a known fact that when workers are happy in their workplace, they work more efficiently and are more likely to go the extra mile for the company and their customers. The positives for society are obvious too, with fewer vehicles on the road, less congestion, a drop in carbon footprint, less pollution, less waste and less energy demand on the grid.

We have all witnessed the long commuter delays on our major roads, especially on the M50 and N11. Alleviation of this problem must include more frequent services on the DART and an overhaul of the timetable, particularly the trains from rural parts, such as the County Wexford Rosslare to Dublin line. The cost of public transport must be reduced.

Many European countries, such as Luxembourg, have introduced free public travel. Other countries have adopted a monthly pass note worth up to €9, while others have €3 daily passes. Some cities, like Montpellier in France, have free public transport within the city. These options must be seriously considered as the traffic on our motorways has reached full capacity. It is a major reason we are missing our carbon emissions targets. It is time to fully fund our public transport for the betterment of future generations. Sinn Féin fully supports this motion.

Deputy Sinéad Gibney

First, I would like to move amendment No. 2 to the motion.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Brian Brennan)

The Deputy cannot move it but she can discuss it.

Deputy Sinéad Gibney

Okay. To summarise it briefly, it is a small amendment that simply adds a day-one entitlement to the request for remote working. This is based on the fact that I am currently working on legislation in this area which I will soon be bringing to the floor of the Dáil. I will come back to that at the end of my comments.

I thank the Labour Party for bringing this important motion forward. Remote and flexible working is something I am passionate about. As I said, I am currently drafting legislation on it. I appreciate the opportunity today to discuss it. This is an issue of workers’ rights, transport and climate. It intersects with many policy areas. It is simply a quality-of-life issue for many people in this country. The way work has changed means that people can do their jobs effectively from anywhere. Caithfidh muid cinntiú go bhfuil ár ndlíthe ag coinneáil suas leis sin. We all understand that not every job can be done flexibly or remotely but we have advanced leaps and bounds when it comes to the number of jobs that can. Indeed, if there is any silver lining to the chaos that was Covid, it is surely that we need to embrace, as a species, the concept of remote working. It is not that long ago when the concept of online meetings, hybrid working and working from home in general was foreign to most people. For many, it was impossible because they did not have the Internet at home. They did not have the required technology for a virtual meeting and those they worked with were not familiar with those tools. Many of these barriers have now gone and we have the chance to create a meaningful and participatory workplace, particularly for groups historically excluded like single mothers and people with disabilities.

The Government talks a lot about being innovators and the vanguard for change and, for me, this is an opportunity to say that we should be exactly that. We should be the country where remote working is done best. We should be the best in class in that particular category. We have whole businesses that communicate, create, market and deliver services completely online. This means less time spent commuting, more money going into local businesses and economies, more parent-friendly workplaces and a better work-life balance for many.

Despite these developments and the fact we have more people in fully remote jobs, we are also seeing workers with hybrid and flexible arrangements being ordered back to the office by both private and public sector employers. I was at the helm of a public body - a State agency - during Covid so I have personally grappled with the fact that businesses need to have their employees in the same place at one time and that there are ways in which we need to work to foster collaboration. The track we are seeing both from the Government and leading bodies like IBEC in calling people back to work is not the response we need, however. This is often done without consultation or warning, ignoring that workers shape their lives around flexibility which is now being taken away.

With regard to the transport factor in the motion, our cities and towns are increasingly choked with traffic where our infrastructure has not kept up with new developments. Tá daoine i mo Dháilcheantar ag streachailt le fadhbanna tráchta atá ag éirí níos measa gach lá. Tá ár mbóithre tachta le trácht. Cuireann sé seo strus ollmhór orthu agus na daoine timpeall orthu. In the southern part of my constituency of Dublin-Rathdown in places like Kiltiernan, Stepaside and Glencullen, as well as along the N11 towards Dublin city centre, I see the daily struggle. In fact, I am part of the daily struggle that people face to get to work on time and home at a reasonable hour. My colleague, Deputy Whitmore, and I both have the E1 bus, the busiest bus route in the country, running through our constituencies. Thousands of my constituents rely on this service every day to get to school and work but every morning, dozens and dozens of people can be seen at each bus stop on the N11 waiting to go to work as full bus after full bus passes them by.

I am in constant contact with constituents who may be lucky enough to be able to access the Luas service but they cannot get onto it as every single Luas that pulls in is full past the Stillorgan and Kilmacud stops. Those who have to drive may live less than 10 km from the city centre but they have to leave their houses at 7 a.m. or before to be at their desk by 9 a.m. This is without even touching on no-show buses that leave people stranded on the side of the road in some of the most rural parts of my constituency. This crisis is not a one-off problem or an occasional inconvenience; it is a constant daily worry and an invisible burden carried by people who are trying to go about their daily lives.

There are real solutions to these issues, and this motion speaks to many of them, such as funding the expansion of public transport and infrastructure. We know that MetroLink is expected to carry 20,000 passengers per hour in each direction but we have seen literal generational failure of this Government to actually put it into action. Buses and the Luas have taken countless cars off the road, which means less congestion. Not forcing people into the office means fewer hours stuck in limbo on the N11 or the M50 and more hours spent on leisure, family and productive work. It is clear there is demand because I see that demand stuck on the side of the road waiting for a bus to stop but, instead, watching full buses sail by.

We had a golden opportunity to enshrine remote and flexible working previously and we have been let down with the right to request remote working that is not even a right at all. The current legislation only grants employees a right to request remote working which, for an increasing number of employees, is refused or revoked. Like so many aspects of workers’ rights in Ireland, we have created a system where the employee has no power and something that may make no difference to their productivity but a huge difference in their lives can be arbitrarily refused by their employer. The current Act leaves them with long commutes, the financial and climate burden of running a car and the daily strain of rushing to and from work, while balancing all of their family commitments. We know all of these things can push people out of the workforce, particularly women, single parents and people with disabilities. It leaves us with congested roads, packed trains and buses and decreased revenue for small local businesses.

We need a real right to remote and flexible working, which is why I will soon be introducing legislation to the House on this issue. It will address the gap highlighted by today’s motion that the right to request remote and flexible working is too weak. We need a real system defined by reasonable expectations of employers and employees with an entitlement from day one. A right to request remote work has been a source of frustration for so many employees who realise, when their request is unreasonably denied, that this right is not particularly useful in changing the situation or helping them to deal with unfair denial of remote or flexible working arrangements.

I commend the Labour Party on bringing forward this motion, especially Deputy Wall who brought his lived experience literally to the floor of the Dáil today as he was delayed on his commute here.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

I thank the Labour Party and Deputy Wall for bringing this motion forward. We are very happy to support it. A constituent of mine once told me that they did not live in Wicklow town; they merely slept there. That has stuck with me because it is reflective of the lived experience of so many people in a commuter county like Wicklow where people buy their homes, want to start families and be a part of the community but spend three or four hours a day trying to simply get in and out to work. Anyone who has travelled on the N11 or the M50 recently will know that we do not have any peak times on those roads any more. There is just a constant stream of traffic that people get stuck in. Indeed, if there is something like a crash, it just makes it impossible to get to work.

Not only does spending hours in that traffic create huge challenges for individuals in the context of their mental health and their ability to spend time with their families and on things they enjoy but it also creates a huge cost to communities. When those people are in their cars, they cannot be out talking in their local shop to shop owners and buying local. They are not going to be out volunteering in their local communities either. Every hour spent on the N11 in a car hollows out the communities from which these people come and where they should be living and enjoying their time.

This is not an isolated instance. This happens to constituents of mine all over the county. We all know that Wicklow has seen an incredible growth in population over the last number of years. What we have not seen, however, is infrastructure keeping pace with that growth. We are probably one of the few counties across Ireland that has a significant number of new houses being bought, but they are not affordable homes. That means that new people are coming into the area who have to keep on travelling in and out of Dublin to make the money to pay the mortgage.

With that lack of investment, when it comes to our public transport we have buses that do not show up, and when they do show up they cannot take anybody on because they are too full. We have train services that are so full going from Gorey to Dublin through Wicklow town that people faint on them because they have to stand for hours on end. We are not seeing the investment in public transport that the population growth in Wicklow should be matched with. There are huge pressures on families. I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward the motion. I ask the Minister of State to look at this from a holistic perspective. Wicklow needs sufficient public transport.

Deputy Roderic O'Gorman

I thank Deputy Wall for bringing forward this motion which we in the Green Party are very happy to support. Fundamentally, the motion recognises that our economic health as a country is intrinsically linked to the well-being of workers, students and carers. Our economic health is linked to their ability to live, travel and pursue their lives in a way that is facilitated and supported by the choices that the State makes.

Too often, people feel they face a battle just to get to and from work. They have longer and longer commutes and spend more time away from their kids and families. When this happens every day over many years, it leaves people feeling failed and frustrated that things never seem to change. We know that progress can be made, and we have seen how effective remote and flexible working can be in some areas. Evidence shows it can boost long-term productivity and reduce attrition and turnover. It can allow for people in a caring role to continue as full members of the workforce. Most relevant to this motion, it can tackle issues around congestion, peak commuting capacity failures and associated air quality and emissions issues.

There are many wins in embracing flexibility and remote working in a co-ordinated way. This was at the heart of many of the initiatives my party took in government. Our investment in the prioritisation of public transport has led to record journey numbers being undertaken in urban and rural areas. We pulled some large public transport projects off the mothball shelf, including metro, Luas and DART electrification. We introduced into Irish labour law for the first time the recognition of flexible and remote working, along with greatly expanding parents' leave and introducing domestic violence leave.

It is important that the Government continues to build on these successes. In the Chamber I have raised a number of times my concerns about where the Government is going on investment in public transport, and we can come back to that on another day. Specifically regarding remote working, I was the Minister to introduce that. I built in a review of the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act. That review took place at the end of last year. It will be interesting and valuable for us to know when the review of the Act will be published and whether the Minister of State or the senior Minister in the Department will bring forward changes and improvements to the Act on foot of that review.

Deputy Seamus Healy

Remote, flexible and hybrid working is here to stay. Recent demands to return to the office from banks, IT companies and Departments seem to challenge that view. Long-term arrangements must be put in place for this type of working. These working arrangements are essential for modern work-life balance and must not be treated as temporary or pandemic-related. These working conditions must be based on a legal framework, giving an entitlement to these arrangements.

Recent surveys by the Fórsa trade union found that 86% of members were interested in remote working, with 80% preferring a hybrid situation, that is, work at home with time in the office. A legal framework must be put in place covering, but not exclusive to, protection against forced return to the office. Arbitrary blanket or full-time return to the office must be outlawed. There must be a right to disconnect. These arrangements must not erode working conditions and must protect the right to disconnect outside of working hours. There must be fair access, that is, a legal right of access for all suitable roles to these arrangements. Vitally, an appeals system must be put in place whereby any refusal by an employer can be challenged and employers cannot give vague or spurious reasons for refusal.

These arrangements must be voluntary. Staff must have a right to opt out and equality of rights. These workers must have the same rights, protections and promotional opportunities as office-based staff. Health and safety issues and guidelines must be in place, in particular for workstations and those with mental health difficulties. Particular groups must also have access to these arrangements, including carers and staff with particular health needs. Of course, there is a climate change and pollution aspect to this, which is important. There would be less pollution and a reduced carbon footprint. Workers are currently stuck in cars for hours on end and also incur increased insurance costs, etc. A legal basis is required immediately.

Deputy Charles Ward

I thank the Labour Party and Deputy Wall for bringing forward the motion on the right for employees to request flexible and remote working and the introduction of an action plan to improve transport services over the next 12 months. If I could add one thing to the motion it would be to ensure that the infrastructure is in place to make flexibility and remote working possible, in particular in rural areas. It might shock some Deputies to know that parts of Donegal still do not have access to fibre broadband, which is ridiculous in this day and age. I welcome that this week Tory Island finally received broadband, meaning that 118 homes and businesses on the island now have broadband, which is welcome.

The reality is ridiculous and has been going on for far too long. We have to prioritise the upgrading of the national grid, which is essential, particularly in rural areas. There have been many outages in rural areas due to increasing storms, which has made it very difficult for remote working to be a viable option, in particular in Donegal. It is concerning that when we are trying to encourage people not to travel during weather warnings, they are going into offices. There have been incidents where damage has occurred.

Allowing remote working would allow us to alleviate accommodation and home shortages in Dublin, in particular. There are thousands of people from rural communities working in Dublin. If they had the opportunity to work from home they would do so, which would breathe life back into communities. People of all ages want to retire to their home areas. Parents want to raise their children in rural areas where they grew up. They would take the opportunity to move out of cities and back to such areas in the morning if they had the flexibility and option to do so.

People should be given the opportunity to make lives for themselves and have access to work and transport in rural areas. Allowing remote and flexible working would help to breathe life into many towns and villages which have been abandoned and have seen no investment in recent years. It would stop the steady loss of public and essential services that we have seen lately. For example, the village post office in Fanad first opened in 1873 but closed last year. Fintra National School in Killybegs was established in 1841 and now faces closure because it does not have the population to sustain it. Anybody in Donegal who was given the opportunity to move back tomorrow would do so.

Deputy Paul Murphy

The Government is barely a year in office and is already on track to be one of the worst Governments on record when it comes to public transport. It depends on right-wing rural TDs who could not care less about commuters in Dublin or elsewhere. All they want is more money for roads in their constituencies. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Ministers are perfectly happy with that, relaxing in their chauffeur-driven Mercs and claiming thousands of euro in travel expenses while ordinary workers are stuck behind the wheels of their cars and on buses and trains for hours every day and forced to pay the full cost of fuel, motorway tolls, bus fares and wasted time out of their own pocket.

About the only good thing to come out of Covid was the normalisation of working from home. All of a sudden, hundreds of thousands of workers who could do their jobs just as well at home got parts of their lives back. There were high hopes that the Government's law on remote working would back them up and protect that precious work-life balance. Leo Varadkar even claimed that businesses would need a very good reason not to allow staff to work from home. What happened was that the Government danced to the tune of big business, as usual. It betrayed workers and brought in what is a meaningless right to request remote working. It is not worth the paper it is written on. Over the past year we have seen lobbying from the Dublin Chamber of Commerce to ensure that no real rights are given to workers.

The same thing is happening with the public consultation on the law that started last year. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, is not expecting any significant change even though submissions from frustrated workers outnumbered those from employers by more than ten to one. The level of corporate capture we have seen here is not an isolated case. The campaigning organisation Uplift launched an important report yesterday that lays out in damning detail the scale of corporate power in this State. Across social media, health and housing, big business is setting the agenda and dominating every aspect of our lives. We can hear it in the car radio as we sit in traffic, forced to drive because of that corporate capture and the long-fingering of projects like DART+ South West and Luas Finglas and the absence of new funding for public transport services this year. The anti-working-from-home trend is going to make things worse. Every fat cat billionaire from Denis O'Brien to Jeff Bezos is pontificating against working from home while they sit on their yachts. We need to give people the right to work from home, and we need to invest in free frequent public transport.

Deputy Ken O'Flynn

The motion actually has tremendous merit, in fairness. There are ups and downs in the motion and some things about which I would be very sceptical or cautious. It gives the Government a get-out-of-jail card at times.

I will talk about my own constituency. Where is the Cork Luas? It was announced three or four times. There is no shovel in the ground. Where is the northern ring road around Cork? Where is the northern distributor road? It is seven or eight years away. Where is the Mallow distributor road? Where is the orbital bus for Mallow that takes people from my estate to the other side of Mallow or from my estate in Ballyviniter up to the train station so people can genuinely commute?

In parts of north Cork, west Cork and east Cork, we have no broadband connections. People could not work from home. They physically could not work from home because there is no broadband available and certainly not at the bandwidth people would need to work from home. Foreign direct investment has resulted in 52,000 jobs in Cork. I heard a Member here talk about American companies in a very derogatory way. I am very thankful for that foreign direct investment in my constituency and for the 52,000 jobs in Cork. I am very thankful for that, and I do not think we should be nasty about foreign direct investment or nasty about companies when we do not really know what we are talking about when it comes to employment.

Working from home benefits a lot of people, but it is a double-edged sword. I have seen people being isolated in their own homes as well. They have lost the connection with their workplace. We have to be cognisant of that. We have to be cognisant of the fact that there are many people who start in a new job or new role or who come into this country and work who do not have a huge network of people around them. They also have a situation where they are learning on the job. It is a bit more difficult to send an email to somebody and ask them to explain how to do A, B, C and D rather than nudge the fellow at the next desk to ask how we really get over this problem. We have to be cognisant of that. I support the motion. It is a very well-intentioned motion, but it is not the be-all and end-all, and it is certainly not the answer to everything.

Deputy Michael Collins

Independent Ireland would support flexible remote working where it is genuinely practical, and I say genuinely practical. It should be agreed, obviously, with the employer, which would be hugely important to a lot of employers, but it is not an enforcement. I see where it has benefited my own community where quite a lot of people come from all over the world, never mind other parts of west Cork, to live and work remotely. Deputy O'Flynn mentioned connectivity. We are lucky to have a great mobile broadband company in west Cork called Digital Forge, which has made sure that everybody is connected down there. However, the phone service is not great in many places and that is something we need to look into.

I also have concerns about a lot of people who travel the length and breadth of the roads in west Cork. My brother, Councillor Danny Collins, called for emergency funding last week because the roads are in an atrocious condition in west Cork. People send me pictures of potholes when the two front wheels or back wheels of their cars go into them, or they lose part of their cars inside them. The point I am trying to make is about the northern relief road, the southern relief road, the Bandon relief road, the Innishannon relief road, the Bantry relief road - none of them have been worked on. People are spending time in cars that they do not need to spend. If they can spend that time working from home, it will certainly benefit them, but there is not a one-size-fits-all approach here. I am very aware of that. Some employers have concerns about this Bill going forward and we need to maybe iron out those concerns. Certainly, employees are working hard, but they are finding it difficult to travel on the roads we have with the condition they are in. Public transport is another area and while some progress is being made, it is not enough.

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

I support anyone who wants to work from home. I support any employer that can facilitate working from home. I do not support legalising that it is mandatory that an employer has to make people work from home because there is no glove that fits everyone. That is my problem. That means that the people here could all decide that, legally, they can work from home. We could have people in other sectors saying that, legally, they can work from home. There are general data protection regulation, GDPR, reasons that people cannot work from home. There are different reasons that people cannot work from home.

We also have another side of it. Some people do not want to work from home and that is their right. There are employers that help people when they want them to work from home because they are actually more productive at home. In other cases, we have people with mental health issues who want to come to work. They do not want to work at home. In cases where employers work with people and it is viable for them to work from home and it is beneficial for both parties, I encourage it 100%. However, I have an issue with legalising it unless the criteria can be worked around for all sectors. When it puts all sectors together, then we will have something we can work with. However, what we need to do here is strengthen it to help employers to accommodate people who want to work from home. However, we also need to have the Internet connectivity.

I was on "The Late Debate" last night with Nessa Cosgrove. She said that Survey Ireland did a survey of 800 people in Dublin. It is a big place. We must look at everyone; we do not just look at one area. That is what was said on "The Late Debate" last night - it only surveyed 800 people in Dublin. The Labour Party wants to apply this to the whole country. It is bigger than Dublin, you know. It should come down the country and survey us as well. We would have no problem with that.

Deputy Mark Wall

Up Kildare.

Deputy Paul Nicholas Gogarty

I live in the wonderful constituency of Dublin Mid-West, which has some fantastic people, but it is also the congestion capital of Ireland. That goes back to when Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, sometimes with dodgy backhanders, were rezoning land on greenfield sites left, right and centre. They built houses everywhere with no facilities and infrastructure. Then, when we had a chance with strategic development zones like Clonburris, Sinn Féin, People Before Profit, the Labour Party and the Social Democrats accused me and others in Lucan, where we were trying to put in playing pitches, of being snobs and trying to move houses to Clondalkin instead when we were trying to move houses to Kishoge train station so people could walk down and get a train. We tried to put in measures that would open the train station before any houses were built. That was not passed, and the board did not uphold our appeal. As a result, the train station in Kishoge had to be totally revamped at a cost of €4 million. The car park that was at Kishoge train station is now gone for housing development, so they had to narrow a lane and put the car parking spaces alongside for the National Transport Authority, NTA, to permit it, and that has led to additional congestion.

As someone with a green background, I know that the more roads we build, the more that cars are going to fill them. We are always going to have a congestion equilibrium but if we put the investment into public transport, we are going to have a lower equilibrium. We are still going to have people driving. If the buses are flowing freely and the traffic gets easier, people are going to start driving again - that is human nature. Now, we have the Government asking South Dublin County Council to rezone more and more land all around the county yet DART+ South West has been put on the long finger. BusConnects is a shambles. I have said before that the NTA is not accountable to anybody. The train service in terms of extra carriages is not being provided, but the Government is asking people to move into places where it cannot guarantee they can get to work. That is why we need flexibility in terms of working hours. It is so people can bring their kids to school or try to find a crèche, if they are lucky enough to bring their kids to a crèche as well. We need more investment, and we need more flexibility.

We also need a change in industrial policy. I mentioned before that in one estate in my constituency, 90% of the people who are paying top dollar for those houses are not from Ireland. They are from abroad. They are working and paying taxes and contributing here. The issue is, though, that they have not grown up in the area. People who have grandparents who could help mind their kids are being priced out of the market. Meanwhile, software companies are saying they want to go to Dublin. There are rural areas that could do with kids in schools and with the added investment and the industrial policy has not been firm enough to say that if people want to set up their software company, they can set it up with the broadband hubs in rural areas. Keep the population and keep the post offices and banks open.

The entire spatial strategy in this country is for the birds. We need a new town in the midlands that is designed properly. We need to redesign city living and build right up in Dublin city centre in order that people can walk around and go to the shops. We need to bring in all the public sector workers, including gardaí, by giving them incentives to live and work in the city centre. We must stop building out in the suburbs unless we can guarantee the infrastructure is there. In fact, the infrastructure situation is getting worse. In Adamstown, Clonburris and other areas like them, residents are now being given restricted parking spaces. They are told there are 0.75 spaces per unit because this is an area with active travel initiatives, a public transport hub, etc., except it is not. The 15-minute cities will be 50-minute ghettos in 20 years' time because people will not be able to get out of the place if they have a car and they might not be able to have a car because there is nowhere to park it. Three lads renting a house, say, and trying to get from A to B across the city cannot get on a train in the first place and have nowhere to park a vehicle. We need to rethink the whole thing and think a little more cleverly.

Deputy Emer Currie

I will not spend two and a half minutes talking about the benefits of remote and flexible working because I spent five years talking about those benefits, as my colleague Deputy Wall knows. Instead, in the two and a half minutes I have, I will focus on the first line of the motion, which states that "employees in Ireland have no right to flexible and remote work, only a right to request it from their employer". Have my Labour Party colleagues found a country that gives people such a right? The only one I have found over the years is Finland and, even there, it is only for office workers. We must be careful not to give the impression that legislation will fix all of this, which is not accurate. A bigger approach is needed when making cultural changes in society and in workplaces.

That is what we did with the remote work strategy that was introduced by the previous Government. It invested in 400 co-working spaces around the country, in the national broadband plan, in training companies on the cultural change and in offering training to employees through Grow Remote, in which I am involved. That is why our statistics around remote working are so strong. We are higher up the table than most countries in Europe in terms of the number of people working fully remotely and the numbers working from home. Is the system perfect? No, it is not, which is why it is time to devise a new strategy on remote and flexible working to protect what we have and improve it.

Ireland should be the best country in the world for remote working. That must be our ambition. We should have a strategy that targets global companies that work remotely and digitally first and attracts them to Ireland. That would have a halo effect on other companies in Ireland because it would show the productivity and success levels of those companies with a remote-first approach. Can the legislation be improved? It absolutely can and should be improved. There is a spectrum when it comes to the right to request remote working and we are on the wrong side of that spectrum in terms of the legislation having teeth. There are ways in which we can make it a lot stronger such that it boils down to allowing only genuine business reasons for companies to have an issue with remote work. We certainly should strengthen the legislation.

There was a missed opportunity in the introduction of flexible work for carers of children only up to the age of 12. The real cultural and social change will come when there is a degendering of that provision and it is not just, as it usually is, the mother accessing flexible work. It should be available to everybody.

Deputy Barry Heneghan

Gabhaim míle buíochas le Páirtí an Lucht Oibre as ucht an intent atá thaobh thiar den tairiscint seo. Tá sé an-tábhachtach, go háirithe sna laethanta seo, go bhfuil an deis ag daoine trasna na tíre remote working a dhéanamh, go háirithe i gcomhthéacs an tráchta atá ar na bóithre, na timpeallachta agus gach rud mar sin. Tá a fhios ag gach duine - tá staitisticí ar fáil - go bhfuil sé an-mhaith i gcomthéacs an mhéid CO2 a bhíonn ag teacht amach ó charranna na ndaoine a bhíonn ag dul isteach chuig a n-áiteanna oibre.

I am not supporting the motion because, as Deputy Currie mentioned, the legal right to request remote work, and the framework around it, recognises the important reality that not every job can be done remotely and not every workplace can operate in the same way. The existing system should be reviewed and, in that regard, I support the intent behind the motion and I welcome this discussion. The legislation we need to create must provide certainty for employees. Arís, gabhaim míle buíochas to the cross-party group on remote work, of which I am part. I spoke to people in Grow Remote yesterday and this morning and they gave me the statistic that Ireland was losing 100,000 jobs due to the current remote working system. We need to examine it with a view to changing it. Access to remote working expands access to jobs for carers. I welcome the work done by the people in the cross-party group.

In north Dublin, there are people who would be 15 minutes from work on a bicycle but when it comes to getting there on a rainy day, they get into traffic congestion and it is not ideal. Those people need to be facilitated if we are serious about tackling congestion, improving quality of life and meeting our climate targets. As we saw recently, we are in line not to meet those targets. We are dealing with this in the climate committee. Action on remote working could be a very important step that would help.

The task now is for Members from all parties and none to work together to see how we can best benefit our economy through remote working, to scale it properly and to support employers and employees. I welcome many of the points made by speakers on all sides of the House today. If we can do this correctly, it will be very beneficial to the Irish people.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Brian Brennan)

The next speaker is Deputy Danny Healy-Rae. No, in fact, I call Deputy Dolan.

Deputy Conor Sheehan

Deputy Healy-Rae must be working remotely.

Deputy Albert Dolan

I will focus on the fact that remote working disproportionately benefits rural communities. The trend I have noticed over the past few years in the area I represent, Galway East, is that the more remote working that is happening, the more people there are working in fantastic jobs in Galway city, Athlone, Mayo and Dublin. It has allowed those people to come closer to home. They are able to make a decision to build a home close to where they are from and not have to buy in Dublin or Galway city in order to have a short commute. They can manage the longer commute much better for the two or three days they go into the office and can be more effective with their time.

When we reflect on life in Ireland in the past few years, it is very clear that one of the single biggest improvements to quality of life has been remote working and how our mindset around work has changed as well. I will support the Government amendment to the motion and I am really excited to see what its proposals will mean for the future of remote working. The Government has done a significant amount in terms of investment and introducing tax allowances to enable people to claim expenses that may arise from working from home. It is really important to acknowledge the work that has been done and to work with the bodies that want to see improvements in remote working. Across Europe right now, companies are looking for remote workers. They are looking for people who are able to contribute in a digital world that is accelerating at an ever greater rate. It is vital to ensure our workforce is educated, equipped and ready to contribute as best as possible.

Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (Deputy Niamh Smyth)

I thank the Labour Party and colleagues on all sides of the House who made really important contributions. It has been a very fair and balanced debate on the pros and cons, as there always are with these matters, of the proposals before the House.

As set out by the Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, in moving the amendment to the motion, the Government is committed to delivering sustainable transport projects and facilitating remote work in a way that maximises the economic, social and environmental benefits. As outlined earlier, the Government has provided a right to request, which supports and facilitates remote working at the same time as supporting a productive and competitive business environment. There has been significant uptake of remote work since the Covid-19 pandemic, with recent data from the Central Statistics Office showing that in the third quarter of last year, almost 1 million people reported working from home at least some of the time.

The programme for Government reaffirms the commitment to promoting flexible working arrangements that benefit both workers and employers. The Government is fulfilling this commitment by ensuring the remote working legislation is fit for purpose. The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment is currently undertaking a statutory review of the operation of the remote working provisions of the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023.

Deputy O'Gorman asked when that might be published. We will try to get a concrete timeline for that. The purpose of the review is to assess the effectiveness of the legislation, as well as evaluating its clarity and identifying any unintended consequences. I understand that there has been significant engagement with stakeholders, with the Department receiving over 8,000 responses to the public consultation. The final report of the statutory review will be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas. Work is also being undertaken across Government to inform and support the remote working policy, including the development of a national hub strategy, the working in Ireland survey and other research.

The other aspects of the Deputies’ motion are traffic congestion and commuter delays. I smiled when I heard Deputy Murphy say that this only affected Dublin. I have just driven from Bailieborough in County Cavan along the N3, which is a two and a half hour drive. I have always advocated for that area. The issue of remote working in the commuter belt stretches way beyond Wicklow, Kildare and places like that. In County Cavan, along the N3, you will see a pile-up of cars on the hard shoulder, where people are commuting. Obviously, they perhaps now have the flexibility to work from home.

In response to Deputy Dolan's point, it has benefited rural communities in particular. We see that in the footfall in coffee shops, pharmacies and all of the little shops in small towns like Bailieborough, Cootehill, Shercock and Virginia. They have all benefited from that. It does not mean that people cannot live in the more remote parts of the country and have a job in Dublin, like myself.

As noted in the earlier remarks of the Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, the Government is investing record levels of public funds into public transport infrastructure. It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge, as a rural Minister of State, what Local Link has meant for rural constituencies like my own. I never thought I would see a day when there were public transport buses travelling every day on certain roads. It is incredible, and it has to be acknowledged. I want to take a bit of latitude to acknowledge that. Over the lifetime of this Government, we will see the shovels in the ground on MetroLink, DART+, Luas Finglas and the western rail corridor. We will also see the completion and progression of core bus corridors in Dublin as part of the BusConnects Dublin programme, and the progression of the Cork area commuter rail. Deputy O’Flynn also raised matters concerning Cork today. These projects, along with others provided for in the NDP review sectoral investment plan for transport, will help to provide a high-quality, connected public transport system for all passengers and help to alleviate congestion.

Regarding services, an unprecedented funding allocation of €940 million for PSO services was secured in budget 2026, a significant 43% uplift in the allocation from budget 2025. This allocation will allow for the continued delivery of targeted fare initiatives, including the recently introduced free travel for all children up to the age of nine, and the young adult card for those aged 19 to 25, as part of the NTA’s national fares strategy. It also prioritises the advancement of ongoing programmes and commitments in line with operational readiness and resource availability.

These measures allow for the continued growth in PSO journeys. The number of journeys has continued to grow steadily and demonstrates how the public are taking positive steps in making the switch to using public transport. I would have to concur with Deputy Whitmore's comments. She is from County Wicklow and I am from County Cavan. I see it myself, in that people are using buses more and the demand is there. The problem now is having enough buses on the routes to accommodate the number of people using them. We saw an all-time high of more than 343 million journeys undertaken across the PSO network in 2024, which was a record-breaking increase of 32 million compared to 2023 figures. Although the data for 2025 is currently being finalised, we are again anticipating a significant uplift on 2024 passenger numbers. This is evidenced by recent figures published by Dublin Bus, reporting 164 million passenger journeys in 2025. The most recent BusConnects progress report was published in December 2025, covering phases 5A, 5B and 6A in Dublin. It shows that eight out of ten users are satisfied with the service, and 45% believe the bus service in their area has improved. We remain fully committed to building on these positive changes and delivering a public transport system that is responsive to passenger needs.

Already, we can see the impact that the increased funding under the public transport retrofit programme is having, in line with the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030. As Members know, having reliable and safe lifts at train stations is vital for anyone with mobility difficulties. For example, accessibility and safety at Clongriffin DART station have improved. We will continue to make bus and train stations nationwide more accessible, increase the number of wheelchair-accessible taxis and reduce the period of advance notice for disabled people using public transport.

I assure the Deputies that the Government recognises that transport connectivity is hugely important for people who live and work in rural Ireland. This is evidenced by the launch last year of Ireland’s first-ever smart demand responsive transport pilots in Achill, Killarney and the north-east of Limerick city. Using the TFI Anseo app, passengers are now able to book on-demand rides with ease, bringing the convenience of modern ride-share together with the reliability and affordability of public transport. This pilot is funded under the Government’s Climate Action Fund, which supports innovative transport solutions that contribute to a greener, more connected Ireland.

The roll-out of the current phase of the towns bus programme began with the launch of the Carlow town bus service in 2023. It was followed by the Clonmel town bus service later that year and the Portlaoise town bus service in February 2025. Mobilisation has commenced for the Mullingar town service, with a target launch in quarter 1 of 2026.

The Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, has already touched on the investment being made in walking and cycling infrastructure to encourage commuters to walk and cycle, where possible, and I accept it is not always possible in rural parts. The Government recognises, however, that the investment will only be worthwhile if the infrastructure is safe to use. Vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians and cyclists, need to be safe when utilising our walking and cycling networks to get to and from work and school.

In conclusion, I thank the Deputies for raising these issues and initiating the discussion. However, for all of the reasons I have outlined, the Government is opposing the motion. The Government has high ambitions for our public transport and active travel network and is allocating funding to make them a reality.

Deputy Duncan Smith

Unfortunately, the Government does not have high ambitions. There has been an attempt by the rest of the Opposition and the Government to misrepresent or misunderstand our Bill, our motion and our campaign. We carried out a survey in which 850 workers took part. They were not from Dublin, and it was not a Dublin-based survey. In fact, 840 of those who took part in the survey were from outside Dublin. It was a nationwide campaign. Deputy Dolan made a salient point on how remote working disproportionately and positively impacted rural workers. That is why Members should be supporting our motion and our Bill. The Minister of State herself said that she wanted to maximise the environmental and economic benefits of the right to remote work. She could do that by supporting our Bill. Government policy remains the right to request, which is ultimately the right to nothing.

Deputy Currie misrepresented our Bill, perhaps not deliberately. She took the first line, where we note the current policy, but did not reference what we were calling for, which is to introduce a real right for employees to flexible and remote work where it is reasonably practical. We know that you cannot lay a brick from home, teach at primary school from home or be an outdoor worker for a local authority from home. However, many jobs that are desk-based, predominantly computer-based or office-based can be done, and done effectively and efficiently, from home, with all the subsequent quality of life and climate benefits, and the impact on local economies.

It is the public service, led by Ministers, that is allowing the culture to shift, when we should be leading in the public sector and ensuring that people can work from home where it is reasonably practicable. This is feeding into the private sector and pulling people back into the office - back onto overcrowded train carriages and buses that are not turning up - when they should be working from home. Dublin is the 11th most congested city in the world, and Galway and Cork also have huge congestion problems.

We have a Government that has made a deliberate decision to diminish its investment in active travel and public transport versus its investment in roads. That is what it has done. During Leaders' Questions a number of weeks ago, the Taoiseach told my leader Deputy Bacik he felt the old model of 2:1 in favour of public transport and active travel versus roads was wrong. The Minister of State referenced Local Link but that was brought in by the Green Party. That is going to show no improvement even though it has been brilliant. I have had it in my constituency and it is brilliant, but it will not be invested in and improved under the current Government because all the Government wants to do is invest in more and more roads. We have set out a practical motion that is going to put workers and the climate first. It is going to reduce traffic and ensure our motorways are not car parks any more and there is instead an element of free flow. It is a balanced, constructive motion responding to what the Taoiseach always says. This Opposition does make constructive proposals and he needs to listen.

Deputy Conor Sheehan

Tá díomá orm nach bhfuil an Rialtas ag tabhairt tacaíochta don rún seo agus go bhfuil frithrún curtha isteach ag an Rialtas agus ag an Aire. I am disappointed for a number of reasons. I am disappointed because the amendment as it was presented to us makes no reference to what we have said about remote and flexible work. The Minister of State referenced it in her speech but the amendment to the motion does not reference that. We are lucky in one sense that we have the Minister of State with responsibility for AI with us because the amendment reads like it could have been written by ChatGPT.

We have been banging the drum on this for years now and we need a legal entitlement to flexible and remote work from day one for roles where it is reasonably practical. We are not talking about a fella going out to dig the road. We are talking about all the office workers who are stuck in traffic stopping the fellow going out to dig the road from getting to that road in a timely manner. We were told the world of work was going to change post-pandemic and I feel we are really going back to the worst of the pre-Covid world and forcing people back into the office for the sake of it. The current legislation is weak. There are far too many refusals and there is no proper appeals mechanism.

Every morning, people are piling onto the M4, M6, M7, M8, M50 and M20 and wasting their lives away in traffic while the Government wonders why that traffic is getting worse. My city of Limerick is more congested than it ever was. Traffic has gone above pre-2019 levels. The roads are absolutely choked. The Mackey roundabout and Ballysimon junction are both lethal. I come from Corbally and the traffic is well backed up as far as east Clare. We were promised BusConnects. It was supposed to be rolled out in 2025 but we will be lucky to get it by 2027 and we have no clarity as to whether we will get the full BusConnects or end up with some sort of Mickey Mouse diet BusConnects. There is also nothing about commuter rail in the Government's sectoral investment plan for transport in relation to Limerick. We have a number of radial railway lines around the city and there is huge potential to develop a network of commuter rail stations to take cars off the road. It is the same with a rail spur to Shannon Airport. All we have are measures that have already been announced like the double track to Limerick Junction and the park and ride, if it ever happens. We need the Government to recalibrate and reprioritise public transport. It was something the previous Government did much better than the current one does.

Deputy Ged Nash

The Labour Party deliberately decided to align transport issues with the Government's chronic track record on providing a right to working people to access remote work. We get an insight today into this Government's thinking on remote work, for two reasons. The first is that the Government's response to our motion is effectively silent on the question of remote work. The second is that Ministers and their Secretaries General are actively working to ensure public and civil servants who worked, in some instances, one day a week at their desk in Dublin are now being instructed - forced - back to those desks on 1 February. They are being forced also onto crowded and congested trains in areas like Drogheda and forced onto roads that were tolled by Fianna Fáil back in the 2000s, adding insult to injury.

I will give some examples from my recent experience on the M1. On 18 December, a very minor tip on the motorway meant thousands of other commuters and I were sitting in traffic outside Drogheda for two and a half hours. The very next day, there was a very serious incident and a woman lost her life. That is the important thing we must remember. That was outside Drogheda on the M1 on 19 December and it caused traffic to be delayed by five and a half hours. The important thing is the emergency services could get to the people who were affected but TII, which is the organisation responsible for providing information on these issues when they arise, was practically silent. There were no updates on social media and belated instructions to drivers on dynamic signage to divert away from the area, and that is simply not good enough.

The right to request remote work as it stands is an empty formula due to the legislation. It is a meaningless melange of words that makes no difference whatsoever to working people. I have a right to request that Drogheda United win the Champion's League but we know that is not going to happen. That is the reality of this kind of situation. The Government is making empty gestures to working people and giving them the impression they have a right that does not exist at all in law. That needs to change. I met a civil servant who has been instructed back to her desk in Dublin who is working productively from home as it stands. I met her on Monday and she asked why, with our antiquated, underfunded transport infrastructure under such well-documented strain, the Government would send civil servants like her and her colleagues, who have proven they can successfully work from home, into the chaos of a transport system that was already so dysfunctional.

The Minister of State will know that Drogheda is one of the fastest-growing areas of the country. We are building 5,000 homes on the north side of the town, 2,000 of which have already been built. To take the strain off the train station in Drogheda, we need to be building a second station. If we were building a second train station, I would accept this Government was serious about providing the supports and infrastructure to commuters to allow them to get to Dublin for work but that project is nobody's child. Irish Rail is saying, in effect, that developers should build it. There are areas with smaller populations where train stations are being built and the demand is clear in the Drogheda area yet it simply is not happening. As the Minister of State knows, Drogheda's station is chock-a-block every morning before 7 a.m. and you will get clamped if you happen to encroach on, for example, yellow box junctions when you have a ticket and need to get onto the train. All these issues need to be addressed and the easiest and quickest way to address this would be to give workers a right to work remotely.

Amendment put.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Brian Brennan)

In accordance with Standing Order 85(2), the division is postponed until the weekly division time this evening.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Wednesday, 21 Jan 2026

Flexible Work and Commuter Delays: Motion [Private Members]

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 21 Jan 2026