Mr. Joe O'Connor:

I thank Deputy Bruton for his contributions and shall comment on a few points. First, we view remote, hybrid, flexible and blended working as a huge part of the conversation on what the future of work needs to look like. We also think it is important that we do not purely confine the discussion on the future of work to the location of work. The conversation also needs to feature control over working time. As we have seen during the pandemic, the whole conversation on the right to switch off has been an issue for many workers and many different sectors. There are also the issues of average working hours and working time.

While we share the concern about having two tiers over the medium to long-term, we believe that if you do not start somewhere, you will not get anywhere. This is a pilot programme and experiment. We welcome the Government's commitment of €150,000 in research funding as an acknowledgement of the fact that at a very minimum, this idea is worthy of further investigation and exploration. The only way we can ensure that we get the best quality data from the pilot project and research is to ensure we have as broad a participation as possible, across as many different sectors and settings as possible. It will be only then that we can answer some of these questions.

We, in the campaign, fully acknowledge that up to now most of the research in this area, with the exception of some projects like the Iceland one, has been very much at an individual company level. In many cases, a company would introduce this and would pair with an academic institution, but would then self-report its own outcomes. We want to develop a very ambitious pioneering project that will have a broad parallel trial of a four-day week across many different countries, sectors and settings because it would produce quality data that does not exist currently. Some of the results we have seen from companies in different sectors that have conducted trials are positive enough that this initiative warrants further and deeper exploration.

It is important to note that while less than 2% of the population took part in the Icelandic trial, this has led to policy change and 86% of the workforce has now negotiated new shorter contracts. It is a study around working time reduction rather than a move to a four-day working week. Our campaign talks about the 100-80 model and we are not just talking about the four-day working week. It is a reality that on the demand side around 90% of workers in almost all surveys, when given the option to choose between a four-day week or a compressed five-day week, chose a four-day week. In terms of businesses, of the 17 companies that have signed up to take part in our trial, 16 companies are doing it on the basis of a four-day week and one company is doing on the basis of a compressed five-day week. Within the business community there is a more significant interest in the four-day work week than the compressed five-day week.