Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I intend to be brief, but I concur with my colleague, Deputy O'Reilly, about the Tánaiste's engagement with his portfolio. It appears to those of us in opposition that it is beneath him to address matters pertaining to his Department in the Oireachtas. It is approximately two weeks since he took a swipe at the Labour Party's proposal to introduce legislation in reference to the High Court decision on sectoral employment orders. He dismissed it as virtue signalling. I have been waiting for an opportunity on the floor of the House to take him to task for that remark. We have had two sessions of Private Members' business on the broad theme of employment rights, one tabled by the Social Democrats and another in the form of a motion relating to the Debenhams workers from Solidarity-People Before Profit. We have also had the Credit Guarantee (Amendment) Bill. Despite all of those debates, I am still waiting for an opportunity to engage with the Tánaiste. There are themes that other political parties in the Dáil and I want to return to under the broad umbrella of the economy, employment rights and company legislation, but if the Tánaiste is not present for at least part of those debates, he will not hear those messages or be influenced by them. That is not in any way a reflection on the entire team in his Department, and I respect the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, very much, but it undermines what we are trying to achieve when the Tánaiste does not seem to be minded to address issues raised in the House and pertaining to him.

We have studied this Bill and proposed no amendments to it because we view it as timely and necessary. I note the level of consultation that the Department has had with various stakeholders in order to ensure that the legislation is robust, is necessary and can operate effectively. However, I will make a point about how the economy and business will change in light of remote working, online meetings, etc. There is a growing assumption that the manner in which businesses operated remotely or how meetings took place remotely over the course of the pandemic was 100% positive. Although it was positive to see a reduction in traffic and the amount of time workers spent commuting and it was positive that people could spend more time at home, what happened was not universally positive. In some circumstances-----

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