Mr. Kevin Callinan:

On the last point, remote working has shown us just how much change can happen relatively successfully when we have a disrupter. Therefore, it is fair to make the comparison with remote working because the idea of a four-day week, whose time has come in our view, is not as far-fetched as people may have thought. We are not talking about regulation at this stage or about implementing something across the economy or workforce as a whole. What we want to do at this stage is maximise participation in pilot programmes to try to gather evidence and identify issues or problems that may arise in particular businesses, sectors or even areas within the public sector.

Comments about the danger of a two-tier workforce are fair, but if we look at this over the medium to long term, we can see how work gradually will be revalued. Rather than it being what the Deputy describes, we can come at this anew. It will obviously impact on training programmes if we need more people in healthcare or education roles, for example. That is certainly something that would emerge but we are talking about this happening over a significant period of time.

I apologise but I have a prior commitment to address the PDFORRA conference at 2 p.m. in Killarney. Mr. Andrew Barnes will join the meeting in my stead. As a global pioneer on the four-day week, he has a lot of knowledge of the subject and will be happy to deal with the questions posed