Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute. We all recognise that one of the positives from the pandemic will be the opportunity many people have had to work from home and to have the blended experience of working some days in the office and some days from home. It will benefit those who had long commutes and those who live in the west and mid-west. However, concerns have been relayed to me regarding some of the large multinationals now giving people opportunities to work outside the State. That development has all sorts of implications for economic life here. It may also be the thin end of the wedge, where some of these very large multinational companies that are benefiting from the Irish tax regime may ultimately have very few of their employees based here. I am not suggesting that will happen overnight but it may be the beginning of a process affecting the way these companies manage their employees.We know these large multinationals are very good at managing their tax affairs. They are here for all sorts of reasons. It would be timely to have a debate about the whole working experience post Covid to look at the opportunities and see how Government might respond to assist those who want that blended experience but also to identify the potential pitfalls and problems that might exist in our tax legislation or in other supports that are provided, particularly by the Industrial Development Authority, IDA. It would seem quite bizarre that the State, through the IDA, was funding jobs that were supposed to be located here but may now transition very quickly without any recovery of the investment that has been made in them. While this is, therefore, a great opportunity and I really welcome the potential, there are also some pitfalls and we should discuss them at the earliest possible opportunity.