David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I found the presentation fascinating. One of my sons told me recently I am not a digital native. I looked it up and discovered that I might be a digital immigrant or even a digital refugee.

That goes to the heart of some of what Ms Mangan has been saying where it is not just legislation but a change of mindset, of how we view things, and so on, that is needed. For many employers, businesses, companies and workers, this is very new and very challenging. There are built-in prejudices that if someone is not there under someone's gaze, perhaps they are not working at all but are skiving off. I know of one particular young man at the moment who is employed in Ireland but is based in Mauritius and he is extraordinarily productive, doing very well and making a great deal of money for his company. Perhaps the issue of the change of mindset is where we need to get to. Ms Mangan cited that early on in her presentation, if one reads between the lines.

I have a number of questions. Ms Mangan mentioned that there are more than 80,000 remote jobs available in Ireland today. Could she expand on that please at some stage? Can she tell us exactly where that figure comes from, what kind of jobs they are, if they are available and, if there are difficulties in filling them, why is that the case?

Could she also talk a small bit about the hubs and the hot desk offices? I have said in the Dáil on a few occasions that I do not believe we are thinking big enough on this issue. In many rural towns people leave them in the mornings and there are lines and lines of traffic heading into cities and into big companies where they sit at desks all day for much of their time. They could do that in their own towns.

Working in one’s own house is difficult. I have also read, and perhaps our guests might help me on this point, that it can be quite expensive if one is at home all day in respect of heating, lighting and so forth, where the carbon emissions can actually go up if one is working at home rather than working at a central employment point, and so forth. I have been looking at the idea of the larger remote working hubs in towns and villages. In some of the provincial towns, in particular, one can leave home, go to work but not actually have to travel into a city 20 km or 30 km away. Ms Mangan might comment on that please.

I also know that she mentioned Portugal as having best practice. Could Ms Mangan talk about third level; I believe the University of Edinburgh and perhaps MIT have also done a great deal of work in this area? Perhaps those universities should be leading the way here by not having all of their students going to a central campus but in having more remote working areas.

Should workers have a choice as to whether they might like to work remotely as opposed to employers insisting that workers would have to work remotely? Should we look at this the other way in respect of workers having a choice as to whether they would like to go into the office for half or some of the time, or whatever, rather than having to stay home, especially if there is not a hot desk or hub in the workers' town or locality?

There are many businesses which cannot facilitate remote working and I believe Ms Mangan alluded to some of those in her earlier presentation. Should we give those companies an opt-out at the very beginning so that they would not have to actually prepare a policy in this regard? It seems to me to be time-wasting and expensive for a company or business to have to prepare a policy in this area if none of their workers can work remotely. I am thinking here perhaps of services where people work in nursing homes, for instance, where people have to go in, or in restaurants where people have to attend, or plumbing companies where people have to be physically on site.

Those are all of my questions for the moment, Chairman.