Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

At a governmental level, we were exclusively focused on policy. As we return now, that is being dragged left, right and centre. It is full on again.

Some of us love that engagement with people and so on. I like that kind of politics. I know what I signed up for, so to speak, so I do not complain about it. That said, it is very challenging and frightens people away from coming into politics. The point is that we need to take greater charge of how we organise our weeks and so on. To be fair, a lot of progress has been made. The situation was far worse in respect of late nights and so on in the past. The voting situation has been reformed effectively and the voting block works well.

There have been international assessments of productivity with remote working. It depends on the type of job but there has been an increase in productivity in some areas. Other workplaces need person-to-person engagement. Politics needs person-to-person engagement through meetings and so on. The Civil Service was quite proactive on remote working and still maintains it. I think we will end up in a hybrid situation. My personal view is that young people need to be in the workplace for certain times of the week. That is required for people who are starting out in a job from a mentoring perspective. It gives them the opportunity to engage with people and learn the ropes. We have all done that. The negative side of the pandemic for Leinster House was that the newly elected Deputies and Senators met nobody in their first year and had none of the normal engagements with people that we all had when we were first elected and which we found very useful. A senior politician would tell a newly elected politician how things work. There is a balance to be struck and I think we will end up in a hybrid scenario where people will be in the workplace for a good part of the week and will then be in a position to work remotely at home or from another location on other days. Training will require people on the job. It all depends on the type of work and the nature of the workplace. Some of the international research is already showing productivity gains from remote working in some sectors.