Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have a couple of observations and a question for Mr. Hegarty. Ms Mangan referenced several times the work of the Western Development Commission in the context of applied research that is feeding into the research of Grow Remote. It is a hobby horse of mine that I have been asking the Government to support the development of a south-eastern development commission but we have not got any traction on that. It shows the importance of regionalised applied research. That may be a message our guests will convey to their members.

Irish Small and Medium Employers, ISME, wrote to the committee this morning to make a couple of points. It asked the committee to be mindful of the impact of the legislation on small businesses and noted that 96% of Irish businesses employ 19 people or fewer.

When we are talking about the public sector and large FDI employers it is important to remember that we are talking about large employer criteria there.

One of the points that ISME raised was that of back-office functions that can be done remotely outside Ireland. Does Mr. Hegarty see the possibility that companies switching to remote working would start to look at in terms of individual cost silos? They might look at employing five people in Ireland or they might potentially look at employing five people in eastern Europe who have good English because of the cost benefits. Does Mr. Hegarty want to comment on that? Is that something he is seeing? I presume that companies that are very profit driven are looking at siloing out back-office operations through remote working.