Mr. Joe O'Connor:

I thank the Senator. The programme we have designed will roll out as a six-month co-ordinated trial between February and July of next year. As I said, 17 companies have signed up to participate so far and we are in active engagement with a number of others. This includes businesses from a range of different sectors, including manufacturing and logistics, software development, tech, finance, ICT, engineering and so on. We have developed a package of supports that will provide those businesses with the opportunity to trial this in the most successful and smoothest way possible. We have designed a training programme that has been developed by business leaders from all over the world who have successfully implemented a four-day working week. The intention around that is to ensure the companies trialling this will be able to learn from the experiences of others who have done this already and to be able to integrate this into their pilot design and the planning processes.

They will also be able to avail of mentoring. We have a panel of international business experts and pioneers of the four-day week, including people like Ms Cox, who will be matched up with each company that participates in the pilot programme based on their particular business needs, challenges and context. There will be somebody to support and advise and guide them through the six-month trial.

The third area is networking. We will plug companies into a peer support structure of other companies who will be trialling this programme in parallel, including Irish employers and other employers internationally who will be doing this at the same time. This can provide a community where people can share ideas and experiences and learn from each other along the four-day week journey.

Finally, and probably most critically from our point of view, we developed a research partnership with Boston College and University College Dublin whereby they will work with each company to agree the most appropriate metrics for productivity for that business, whether it be sales, profits or service standards.

They will assess productivity, well-being, carbon emissions and other factors during the six-month trial, at the end of which they will produce an assessment of how the four-day working week has impacted on the individual companies participating, as well as, collectively, the companies and employees taking part. I hope that answers the Senator's question on the outline of the pilot programme on which we have been working.