Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is quite right that the State cannot be the first port of call. There is, however, a general supervisory role and level of communication with businesses, in particular, to try to effect a degree of co-ordination that works for their employees. I spoke with one city centre business owner who has a core day on Wednesday. Everybody comes into the office on a Wednesday for the purposes of physically seeing each other and developing relationships and so on. That business also provides for three days per week in the office over the winter and two days per week over the summer in anticipation of summer holidays and sunny weather, etc., and just a better lifestyle. That is the planning by that business to create three core days to facilitate its employees to come in and, as I said, avail of the shared heat and electricity. It is that sort of signal from Government that we will maintain the balance in potential deductions. As the Minister said, however, business has a strong role to look after its employees. It is an important retention mechanism. We must think about it strategically and in a co-ordinated way so that we can share and pool our energy resources and costs in a way that is of maximum benefit to everyone.

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