The cost of providing an office at home should be covered, Minister Eamon Ryan has said, adding he envisages a future where working from home will “become a normal thing.”
The Green party leader and Minister for Transport also called for reform of the school transport system, saying the current system was “not ideal” and there was a need to “reimagine” it.
30 per cent of rush hour traffic was children being driven to school, Mr Ryan told Newstalk’s Pat Kenny show. If they used school buses that would address part of the traffic congestion problem, he said.
The Minister said it was also beneficial to have more people working from home. It made sense that the cost of providing an office at home should be covered and he was confident that as there was more competition in the broadband sector, prices would be reduced.
“I envisage a future where working from home will become a normal thing,” he said.
Cities rejuvenated
Asked about the 20 per cent reduction in public transport fares as part of a Government move to tackle the cost of living, Mr Ryan said that as the country emerges from the pandemic, if public transport did not get back to full capacity the roads would become congested.
People working from home had been one of the innovations that emerged as a result of Covid, he said.
City centres also needed to be rejuvenated, added Mr Ryan. There was too much reliance on people driving into work in the city centre and then driving home afterwards.
There should be a more diverse range of use of property to create a better urban environment, he said.
It’s easy for the Opposition to say we’ll give you billions and billions, but where would it come from?
The Minister defended the universal energy support package, saying that its main benefit was that it would go directly to those who needed it and would be done quickly.
“We wanted to do something fast that people would see immediately. This goes straight to the consumer, that’s why we picked this route.”
The Government’s finances were secure at present, but that was not guaranteed in the future which was why the Government had to be careful about how it managed finances.
“It’s easy for the Opposition to say we’ll give you billions and billions, but where would it come from?” he said.
