Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Our Rural Future recognises the opportunity that remote working presents for rural rejuvenation and commits to establishing a comprehensive and integrated national network of 400 remote working hubs by 2025.

Remote working hubs provide an opportunity for people to continue to live in rural communities while following their career ambitions, supporting the retention of skilled people in rural communities and attracting mobile talent to rural areas. They can reduce commuting time, while lowering transport emissions, providing a better work-life balance and improved quality of life.

Significant levels of funding have been invested by my Department in the development of remote working projects through programmes such as the Town and Village Renewal Scheme, the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund, Community Centre Investment Fund and Connected Hubs Calls. Successful projects are developed in collaboration with local authorities and communities with many seeing vacant and derelict buildings in rural towns and villages converted into remote working hubs.

In 2021, I launched connectedhubs.ie, a shared online booking and payments platform for remote working hubs and their users. There are currently 359 remote working facilities across the country on-boarded to the platform, nine of which are located in Co Kildare.

The initial focus of the Connected Hubs initiative was on establishing the network of hubs, achieving an initial critical mass and on raising awareness to relevant stakeholders, including SMEs and business owners. This was underpinned by significant levels of investment by my Department through the range of schemes included in the Rural Development Investment Programme supporting enterprise, remote working and community hubs. The fifth Call for RRDF funding proposals closed on the 8th February 2024 and the successful projects will be announced shortly.

I am now focused on the next stage of development of the national hub network. To this end my Department is currently leading, with colleagues from the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment and in consultation with local authorities, communities and with other stakeholders, on the formulation of a National Hub Strategy which I intend to bring to Government this year.

The Strategy will inform the future strategic direction of the National Hub Network and help to underpin the strategic development and sustainability of Ireland’s Hub Infrastructure.