Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I have a practical question for the Taoiseach. How many employees of Departments are currently working remotely, in percentage terms or in real terms? Every time I, one of my staff or even a constituent picks up a phone to seek to talk to somebody within a Department, we are met with an answering machine. Strangely, many of these answering machines actually declare the messages will not be checked. We are living in 2022. This is a tech island and it is really difficult for people to understand that phones cannot be diverted to people who are working remotely. I am very much in favour of people working remotely. It is a good thing. I represent Meath West. Half the people of County Meath are forced to leave the county every day to go to work. It is a good thing that people are able to work from home. Can we not have a system, however, whereby phone calls are diverted to key staff so we can talk to them and gain an understanding of questions on which we are working?

I raised a question with the Department of Transport in respect of salaries within the Department. I was told the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, has a PR adviser on a salary of more than €93,000 per year. We have been talking about largesse in Civil Service wages for a long time. That salary is incredible because this particular role does not provide anything whatsoever of benefit to citizens. Does the Taoiseach have any PR consultants? What wages are they on?

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