Mr. David Moloney:

I thank Deputy McAuliffe. A huge amount was done in the Civil Service, public service and private sector when the pandemic landed in spring 2020. IT resources were quickly put in place to make remote working practical in a way we never thought it was before. As we discussed earlier, there are some trade-offs with that. There was a level of disruption in 2021 with such an unplanned move.

As we look to the future, however, we have seen there are benefits to remote working. There are benefits as an employer of choice and there are benefits to the people who work for us and with us. We have seen that large areas of work can continue uninterrupted and at high quality within a blended working environment. For the Civil Service as a whole, the Minister has charge of the Civil Service blended working policy framework and we have a blended working policy framework that has been agreed by the Government in terms of general principles. That has been discussed and supported by the Civil Service Management Board.