Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On Senator Hopkins's point about Ballinasloe, one of the things that happens is that we put a lot of energy into getting something ready and then it seems to flatline. Sometimes, this is because it takes a while to get it moving or to get the trajectory right. The most important thing is that we now have a broadband officer in every local authority. We will be looking to these officers to map the assets we have in order that we can say, for example, that in County Galway there is a hub in Ballinasloe, another digital hub in another location and open-access libraries. We will have our assets mapped so that we can direct people looking for spaces to Ballinasloe or wherever else. The hub in Ballinasloe is in a county council building. The library is downstairs. It is in the old convent. It is a fine space. We need to promote this hub through the local employment offices, IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, and so on. Grow Remote will be engaging with the broadband officers. Ms Keogh is meeting with them next month to see how they can collaborate with each other to make people more aware of what is available.

To return to Deputy Niamh Smyth's question about statistics on gender participation, the Western Development Commission has carried out and published research on the benefits of remote working and the gender balance in the region in which it works. That might give the Deputy a flavour. The research is on its website and we can get it to her.

The Deputy mentioned the need for us to provide jobs for communities. I differ with her on this point. As legislators, politicians and policymakers, we have to provide the infrastructure to allow the jobs to be created. Vibrant communities, of which we have many, need to be harnessed. I have seen at first hand the example of Tubbercurry. There are many moving parts, but they are all moving together in synch. That is very important. They are on the same page as the local authority, Sligo IT, An Post and all of the other organisations involved in that action group. They are a solid block moving together. It comes back to what Senator Coffey said about Departments being islands and not knowing what is going on elsewhere. It is the same thing in communities. Organisations need to work together and, in many cases, they are doing so. We need to encourage more of that so that we are all moving the same way.

The Deputy also mentioned funding. As stated earlier, there are many funding streams available but we also have many existing assets which we do not realise are there or which are not used as they should be used. I gave the example of the libraries earlier. Where we do not have assets we can target buildings that are derelict and get them opened up. That seems to be the high-energy part of the solution. We should not be doing that unless we have sustainable plans for filling those assets afterwards.