Ms Tracy Keogh:

Grow Remote had many catalysts and that was one of them. Some hubs are not at full occupancy. They need to be at 60% occupancy to break even and be financially sustainable. Sometimes people have been quick to say they do not work. In rural Ireland, we do not have the luxury of saying they do not work. They need to work, so they are on a journey.

Senator Hopkins spoke about a hub targeting a company which could base a group of employees in its area. It is probably looking at satellite offices, which is one stream, but if we consider the bigger trends, companies are operating without offices. Some companies are being approached by centres in areas such as the Burren, Ballinasloe, Loughrea and Portumna asking them to open up satellite offices. They are finding it difficult to do this, however. Grow Remote came about precisely to provide support in such circumstances.

In terms of enabling hubs to reach their full potential, in many instances, they are definitely not there yet. One of our chapters in Termon in Donegal is working on an EU funded project focused on how co-working spaces in rural areas enable rural areas to thrive. It is building that blueprint. To take up Deputy Smyth's point, I have repeatedly heard about the importance of building competent communities and enabling the sharing of case studies and things that work among communities. Another organisation is also working on that blueprint, which I assume will be completed by the middle of this year. This will help hubs identify what is best practice and adopt which elements are relevant to their area.

I thank Deputy Smyth for her kind words on our chapters. She fundamentally gets our bigger mission and the purpose of it. All our chapters and locations can be viewed on changex.org/growremote/locations. We are essentially everywhere. We have one chapter in Monaghan. I was in the county yesterday and there is a tremendous local council in Monaghan. It is very forward-thinking. The first question I ask in every community is whether people know what Wayfair is. Invariably the response is "No" and I think that is why the jobs are not there. The difference between knowing about Wayfair and not knowing about it is the difference between having these jobs in an area and not having them in an area. Monaghan is building out a particularly ambitious chapter and it sees a great opportunity in it.

On funding, going back to the foundations of Grow Remote we have found, as all community organisations find, that the landscape for funding for communities is a minefield. I went to Brussels three times last year to try to understand the system. I have asked counties about it and different counties seem to do it differently. Wherever there is a fund open, we have submitted an application.

In terms of the local employment offices, everyone with whom we have been working has been fantastic. In places such as Tullamore the LEOs have been great and very proactive. However, because we are a national organisation, it is hard to structure engagement with the LEOs because it tends to be one-off cases here and there. That is one of the challenges we have. We emerged nationally and it was not as if we were based only in Tullamore, Offaly or Galway.

On women benefitting from the initiative, that is very important to me personally. We do not have any statistics on it. I call tell Deputy Smyth about one women who was in our chapter. She is a single mother who was living in Dublin. She was renting and had to move out of her home. It had not occurred to me but moving out means moving children from school. This caused major interruption to the woman's life and she was certain she could not do it. She moved to a commuter town, convinced her boss to allow her ad hoc to work remotely and, through Grow Remote, was able to get a referral into a bigger remote working company and secure a proper full-time remote working job. That is the type of success we are seeing.

I do not have any statistics on the issue but Abodoo, an Irish recruitment company, is focused on unconscious bias in hiring. Employmum focuses on bringing women who have been staying at home back into the workforce. WorkJuggle is also focused on enabling that workforce to come back. It is not the only part of this, but it is a major one.