Flexible Work and Commuter Delays: Motion [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2026-01-21 ============================================================ Sinéad Gibney (SD), Dublin Rathdown Okay. To summarise it briefly, it is a small amendment that simply adds a day-one entitlement to the request for remote working. This is based on the fact that I am currently working on legislation in this area which I will soon be bringing to the floor of the Dáil. I will come back to that at the end of my comments. I thank the Labour Party for bringing this important motion forward. Remote and flexible working is something I am passionate about. As I said, I am currently drafting legislation on it. I appreciate the opportunity today to discuss it. This is an issue of workers’ rights, transport and climate. It intersects with many policy areas. It is simply a quality-of-life issue for many people in this country. The way work has changed means that people can do their jobs effectively from anywhere. Caithfidh muid cinntiú go bhfuil ár ndlíthe ag coinneáil suas leis sin. We all understand that not every job can be done flexibly or remotely but we have advanced leaps and bounds when it comes to the number of jobs that can. Indeed, if there is any silver lining to the chaos that was Covid, it is surely that we need to embrace, as a species, the concept of remote working. It is not that long ago when the concept of online meetings, hybrid working and working from home in general was foreign to most people. For many, it was impossible because they did not have the Internet at home. They did not have the required technology for a virtual meeting and those they worked with were not familiar with those tools. Many of these barriers have now gone and we have the chance to create a meaningful and participatory workplace, particularly for groups historically excluded like single mothers and people with disabilities. The Government talks a lot about being innovators and the vanguard for change and, for me, this is an opportunity to say that we should be exactly that. We should be the country where remote working is done best. We should be the best in class in that particular category. We have whole businesses that communicate, create, market and deliver services completely online. This means less time spent commuting, more money going into local businesses and economies, more parent-friendly workplaces and a better work-life balance for many. Despite these developments and the fact we have more people in fully remote jobs, we are also seeing workers with hybrid and flexible arrangements being ordered back to the office by both private and public sector employers. I was at the helm of a public body - a State agency - during Covid so I have personally grappled with the fact that businesses need to have their employees in the same place at one time and that there are ways in which we need to work to foster collaboration. The track we are seeing both from the Government and leading bodies like IBEC in calling people back to work is not the response we need, however. This is often done without consultation or warning, ignoring that workers shape their lives around flexibility which is now being taken away. With regard to the transport factor in the motion, our cities and towns are increasingly choked with traffic where our infrastructure has not kept up with new developments. Tá daoine i mo Dháilcheantar ag streachailt le fadhbanna tráchta atá ag éirí níos measa gach lá. Tá ár mbóithre tachta le trácht. Cuireann sé seo strus ollmhór orthu agus na daoine timpeall orthu. In the southern part of my constituency of Dublin-Rathdown in places like Kiltiernan, Stepaside and Glencullen, as well as along the N11 towards Dublin city centre, I see the daily struggle. In fact, I am part of the daily struggle that people face to get to work on time and home at a reasonable hour. My colleague, Deputy Whitmore, and I both have the E1 bus, the busiest bus route in the country, running through our constituencies. Thousands of my constituents rely on this service every day to get to school and work but every morning, dozens and dozens of people can be seen at each bus stop on the N11 waiting to go to work as full bus after full bus passes them by. I am in constant contact with constituents who may be lucky enough to be able to access the Luas service but they cannot get onto it as every single Luas that pulls in is full past the Stillorgan and Kilmacud stops. Those who have to drive may live less than 10 km from the city centre but they have to leave their houses at 7 a.m. or before to be at their desk by 9 a.m. This is without even touching on no-show buses that leave people stranded on the side of the road in some of the most rural parts of my constituency. This crisis is not a one-off problem or an occasional inconvenience; it is a constant daily worry and an invisible burden carried by people who are trying to go about their daily lives. There are real solutions to these issues, and this motion speaks to many of them, such as funding the expansion of public transport and infrastructure. We know that MetroLink is expected to carry 20,000 passengers per hour in each direction but we have seen literal generational failure of this Government to actually put it into action. Buses and the Luas have taken countless cars off the road, which means less congestion. Not forcing people into the office means fewer hours stuck in limbo on the N11 or the M50 and more hours spent on leisure, family and productive work. It is clear there is demand because I see that demand stuck on the side of the road waiting for a bus to stop but, instead, watching full buses sail by. We had a golden opportunity to enshrine remote and flexible working previously and we have been let down with the right to request remote working that is not even a right at all. The current legislation only grants employees a right to request remote working which, for an increasing number of employees, is refused or revoked. Like so many aspects of workers’ rights in Ireland, we have created a system where the employee has no power and something that may make no difference to their productivity but a huge difference in their lives can be arbitrarily refused by their employer. The current Act leaves them with long commutes, the financial and climate burden of running a car and the daily strain of rushing to and from work, while balancing all of their family commitments. We know all of these things can push people out of the workforce, particularly women, single parents and people with disabilities. It leaves us with congested roads, packed trains and buses and decreased revenue for small local businesses. We need a real right to remote and flexible working, which is why I will soon be introducing legislation to the House on this issue. It will address the gap highlighted by today’s motion that the right to request remote and flexible working is too weak. We need a real system defined by reasonable expectations of employers and employees with an entitlement from day one. A right to request remote work has been a source of frustration for so many employees who realise, when their request is unreasonably denied, that this right is not particularly useful in changing the situation or helping them to deal with unfair denial of remote or flexible working arrangements. I commend the Labour Party on bringing forward this motion, especially Deputy Wall who brought his lived experience literally to the floor of the Dáil today as he was delayed on his commute here. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. 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