Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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The witnesses referred to jobs that are skilled or semi-skilled. That is grand. However, for people who have an app on their phone, which is all that guides their day, the witnesses will understand the fear of that app being somehow empowered to hire and fire without any human interaction. While I respect what the witnesses are saying and understand where they are coming from, let us be frank; there is no one on a bike out there, even today when the weather is nice, who enjoys that work. That work is now being driven by an algorithm. My question is more about how we ensure that the human element is built in. There must be someone looking at the work a person is doing.

In many cases, it will not free people. Perhaps, in an office environment, it will free some people up to do work of higher value and that is very welcome. However, for a lot of people, it will simply remove compassion from the middle layer. This will leave a boss who is far out of reach and a worker - who potentially is an employee or may be classed as self-employed if the rules are being played with fast and loose - being run by an algorithm that has no human involvement. There are concerns in this regard.

It is good to talk about a partnership model but, to be fair, that is in a skilled or semi-skilled office-type environment. When it is taken out and put onto the streets or into a factory, it is very different. I am not hearing that that issue is being tackled. There seems to be an attitude, not necessarily from the witnesses, but more generally, that there are certain types of work and workers who can just be run by this. For me, that is dangerous and devalues and dehumanises the person who is at the very bottom of that chain.