Flexible Work and Commuter Delays: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-21
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Marie Sherlock (LAB), Dublin Central

It is profoundly depressing and frankly outrageous to read the Government’s counter-motion this morning – a motion that cannot even bring itself to acknowledge the problems of congestion and chaos on our roads. It is a motion that does not even make a single reference to remote and flexible work. We have to ask how in touch the Government is when we see the dismissal of people’s very real needs and concerns. These are problems that the Government has brought on itself. The congestion on our roads is one of the many symbols of a decade of complete failure by the Government parties to ensure enough housing for its population. People must move farther and farther out of the main urban centres where they wish to hold their jobs because they cannot afford to buy in those centres. That is on the Government, including the Minister of State.
Congestion is a symbol of the failure of the Government to plan for the increase in population. On the one hand, we have a Government trumpeting an increase in jobs but, on the other, there has been a stark failure to plan for the associated housing and public transport needs.
Most crucially this morning, the Minister of State has failed to recognise the solutions we are trying to bring to these issues, the ones that are staring him in the face with regard to affording more people the right to flexible and remote work in this country.
I commend the Trojan work of my colleague Deputy Mark Wall and the rest of my colleagues in producing this motion, which refers to the problems, the responses that need to happen immediately and, crucially, the world of work and how we need to respond. Instead, we get from the Government a list of achievements and plans in place and no genuine recognition of what is happening and of the genuine demand among workers for a right to real and flexible work.
I looked last night at a very good document produced by the Government back in 2021. It is five years old now. It was visionary and forward-thinking for its time. It was about making remote working work. When I read what the then Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said about the post-pandemic world, I noted his view was that the world of work would change profoundly but that there was so much opportunity to bring more people into the workforce, including people with disabilities, and to ensure greater gender equality. He also referred to spreading more jobs across the country and not losing young workers to places abroad, stating remote and flexible work could play a profound part in achieving these aims. What has the Government done? Little or nothing.
A Bill was introduced in 2023 that did the bare minimum. It ensured that the right to request flexible or remote work would be a perk for good behaviour, available only after six months in a job. The Government put all the power in employers’ hands. We see it in the cases taken to the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC. The reality is that the Government has stood back and allowed its own Departments, public sector bodies and other big employers in this country to force people back into the office for three, four or five days, not trusting them and showing no leadership on how a different, healthier and more productive world of work could look. How can people be productive if they must spend four or five hours in the car every day commuting to Dublin, Cork, Galway or another main urban centre? The reality is that the Government has not taken the lead.
This motion was very much directed at the Minister for Transport, but he is also the Minister for climate. When we see what is happening with emissions, we should realise the right to flexible and remote work could play an important role in reducing them. The Government has turned the other way, and that is shameful.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-31T01:00:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-21