Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for their input. I am struck by what Mr. Hannafin said about our being behind other European countries in regard to the proportion of people who get access to employment. What are the features of the regimes of other countries that we could perhaps learn from? From what they are saying there seem to be joined-up pathways. There are many individual pathways but they are ad hocand the connections between them are sometimes hard to navigate. Is this national strategy addressing that? We have many initiatives that on their own terms seem to be performing well but the overall performance is probably short of what we need.

I would be interested in a few numbers regarding the scale. What are we talking about in regard to the private sector? We know that it is 3.6 in the public sector. What is it like in the private sector? What do we need to reach to have opportunities comparable with other countries? To give time for an answer, does remote working create new opportunities? The issue of the social dimension of work was mentioned. Remote working probably does not deliver that but presumably it delivers in other areas. Are there specific measures in the remote working environment that could be developed to open up new opportunities?