“No longer will most employees who work in offices have to attend Monday to Friday at fixed hours. Hybrid working from different locations, including from hubs and home as well as the office, will be the order of the day.”
This is the view of Fianna Fáil Galway West TD, Éamon Ó Cuív, who was commenting on Communities First – A New Vision for Ireland, a major new policy document from FF which was launched this week. The party hopes the document will stimulate a robust debate on planning issues and lead to significant changes in the State’s approach to planning.
'Changed work patterns, work-life balance, and a new appreciation of the outdoors are some of these changes. These will need to be reflected in physical planning'
The document looks at traditional Irish settlement patterns and makes 68 recommendations on how communities in urban, rural, the Gaeltacht, and the islands, can be strengthened, through the Planning Regulator, An Bord Pleanála, the regional assemblies, local authorities, the planning process, and through the provision of social, voluntary, and affordable housing.
“Physical planning moulds communities, and as Covid-19 has proven, the Irish sense of community and togetherness is never more needed than when our society is challenged,” said Dep Ó Cuív. “We need our planning policies to put a new emphasis on community building in our approach.”
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The Cornamona based TD also said that Covid-19 has fundamentally changed the way in which people work, and a new reality of working from home, remote working, and blended working must be recognised, and that this too needs to be planned for and accommodated.
“The world has radically changed due to Covid-19 and will never be the same again, even when the pandemic is over,” he said. “Changed work patterns, work-life balance, and a new appreciation of the outdoors are some of these changes. These will need to be reflected in physical planning.
“We must expand our vision to see that, in a world where more and more people are working at a distance, the opportunities for people to choose their lifestyle and work-life balance will expand. We should be to the fore in promoting this as the way of the future.”
