Mr. Paul Ellingstad:

Building on that, I would like to address some of the questions raised by Deputies Rabbitte and Niamh Smyth. Having worked in the technology sector for the last 25 years or more, I can state that the technology is very much the elephant in the room. Everyone talks about the technology; that is what gets the attention. The mouse that roars like the lion is the culture and the processes. That is what is missing among the companies and employers. They are looking at whether they have the broadband and the offices and whether they trust the employees. If one looks at the Sunday business papers or at forums like the World Economic Forum, one will see hashtags like #thefutureofwork and people looking at artificial intelligence, AI, and robotics replacing human jobs. Others are talking about digital transformation and the disruption of business models by companies such as Airbnb and Uber. The mouse that roars is to get dialogue going about figuring out the processes and the culture both for employers and employees. Customers have already moved to this. Customers do not mind if a person is based in India or Timbuktu, yet we have very outdated and primitive processes and culture around allowing employees to live literally anywhere in the world while staying connected to their employer, their customers and their partners.

There are really four key ingredients to this that I have seen from inside the technology sector, namely, people, processes, technology and culture. It is about taking a systematic approach instead of taking the silo approach to which Senator Coffey referred. It is about optimising the system not only by looking at the technology, but by looking at the people, the processes, the technology and the culture that make remote working work for employers, employees, customers and, ultimately, communities.