Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Taoiseach for joining us today and for the personal leadership he has shown in moving Ireland to a far more supportive country in terms of gender equality and women in the workplace. I will raise two quick points. One of them was already covered by Senator Pauline O'Reilly. I refer to the issue of women in politics and creating a more family-friendly political environment. Gender quotas have worked to a certain extent. However, as both the Taoiseach and the Senator acknowledged, we also need to look at how we frame the workplace that the politician ultimately enters into, be that at local or national level. We have an awful lot of work to do in this area and we need to lead by example. To be frank, these Houses are far from family friendly with the sitting hours that form part of a typical day here. We often run up to midnight on a Wednesday. There are many representatives who sit in these Houses who do not get to see their families for two or three nights a week. Those who do are very fortunate. From conversations with them, they find that is conducive to them having a long and productive career in politics. For those for whom it is difficult, particularly those who travel from the furthest reaches of the western seaboard, it is and will remain a challenge.

Getting down to local level, as the Taoiseach acknowledged, how local government works and the timing of meetings can erect significant barriers in the way of both parents becoming involved in politics at local government level. I agree that we need to take a serious look at the salaries we pay our local government representatives. The hours they commit to that work during the day and late into the evening and the commitment they give to their constituents are very significant and I do not think they are adequately rewarded for that commitment. As the Taoiseach alluded to, we should perhaps move to a point where somebody can consider it a full-time career rather than a part-time one. That is exactly the route other countries that have been successful in this area have gone down. I would encourage the Taoiseach and his colleagues in the Department to look in that direction.

The other point I want to make is on the area of remote working. We had the greatest social experiment of our generation foisted upon us during lockdown. We essentially said to thousands of civil servants to lock the doors on their offices, leave their offices, go home and try to do their work from their homes. Not alone did they try to do their work, they succeeded in becoming ever more productive and ever more supportive of the people they aim to serve across the whole of our Civil Service. The Department of Social Protection and Revenue, particularly during lockdown when everybody was working from home, did extraordinary work and proved categorically that they can be as productive and as effective in that remote work setting as they were previously. It would be a crying shame if there were not significant learnings from that social experiment that was foisted upon us. The Civil Service and local government should lead by example in the area of remote working. Those of us in the political realm, who work in partnership with civil servants, need to lead by example. In the Taoiseach's own Department, which has an oversight role for all of the Civil Service, has any research been done into productivity during lockdown and that enforced remote working period? It went on for the guts of a year and a half to two years in some instances. Is there work ongoing right now to ensure we can be ever more flexible in the future in how we support civil servants working remotely? I think they have proven conclusively that they can do it. The Taoiseach spoke earlier about quality of life. This could be a hugely positive move in enhancing the quality of life of our civil servants. It is something we need to seriously look at. It would be a crying shame if we reverted to the Ireland of old, the pre-pandemic and pre remote working Ireland. That is something we need to focus on in the next two to three years.