Mr. John McKeon:

We have been very positively disposed towards remote working. In effect, we have had a real-life trial for the past 21 months and it has shown that it works. At a Civil Service level, there is engagement between the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the unions about how we might structure that on a more formal basis. In terms of our staff locations, we are regionally structured in terms of the Intreo centres, which are grouped into eight regions. We also have the biggest distribution of staff of any Department in terms of our headquarters function. Our largest headquarters office is in Sligo, where there are 600 staff. There are approximately 450 staff in Longford, 200-plus in Carrick-on-Shannon and between Buncrana and Letterkenny, there are approximately 400 staff as well. Although our headquarters is formally in Áras Mhic Dhiarmada in Store Street, most of our headquarters staff are based outside of Dublin in the regions.