Flexible Work and Commuter Delays: Motion [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-21
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Rose Conway-Walsh (SF), Mayo

I thank the Labour Party for bringing this motion forward. We share almost all of what is in this motion. I passionately believe in flexible working hours and the opportunities they can present. This motion goes to the heart of the daily reality for workers of the stress of long commutes, gridlocked roads and unreliable public transport. Workers in Ireland have no right to remote working. They have a right to ask and a right to be refused.
I am a pragmatic person and I completely understand that many jobs do not lend themselves to working from home or remote working. However, we need to have a comprehensive conversation about how work patterns are changing and how remote working can benefit not only the workers themselves and their families but local communities as well. We can have that conversation in a very constructive way that can benefit everybody. We are seeing more employers, including in the public sector, forcing workers back into offices, regardless of whether their work can be done from home. That is not right.
This is a workers' rights issue. It is also about trust, productivity and work-life balance. It can work brilliantly where employers and employees embrace the system. As was mentioned earlier, it can work brilliantly for the measurement of outcomes. This is always about outcomes. It is not even about outputs but outcomes and how that can be done. Systems have to be set up so that it can be done in a way in which there is confidence between the employer and employee. That certainly should be done. For the thousands of workers who are working remotely and flexibly, it has meant more time with their families, less stress, better mental health and, often, higher productivity. Yet, instead of building on what works, the Government is pushing people back onto roads that are at breaking point. Dublin is the 11th most congested city in the world. Commuter routes are gridlocked. Trains are overcrowded or delayed. Vital public transport projects are stalled or abandoned year after year.
This congestion does not exist by accident. It exists because of the Government's failure to deliver transport infrastructure, properly fund public transport and legislate for modern, flexible working. In rural Ireland, it is even more evident. There is no joined-up thinking between the public transport systems.

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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