Dr. Stjohn O'Connor:

They are only providing a base level activity. The type of social enterprises mentioned by the Senator should be a different kind of offering. I refer to the classification. We need to be able to locate hubs in different places and move on but that is not what social enterprises need. A social enterprise hub should not be threatened by DigiClare because that is not the market it is working towards. DigiClare should be an added benefit for a social enterprise in terms of supports. Anybody can provide a desk. A social enterprise or a business start-up needs more than that. That is the piece that requires different levels of provision. Part of it is provision for people in the right places. A person may want to go to a hub but it is not right for him or her because it does not offer what he or she needs to get to the next level of business. We are very conscious of this because social enterprise is also part of our responsibility in the Department. We are keen to support social enterprise and hubs that will be focused on social enterprise but we would clearly distinguish those from other offerings. They would be distinguished by the level of support provided.

The Senator mentioned existing buildings. The town and village renewal plan and the future rural strategy place hubs at the centre of regeneration of towns and villages. We have all this infrastructure and we need to use it and to re-equip it. The lessons we have taken from all activities and hub development is that they need to be in towns and villages. People going out to work want that social aspect. They want to be able to pop out to the local café for a cup of coffee and to be able to walk around at lunch time. They cannot do this if the hubs are located outside of towns. That works in some instances but not in every instance. We are talking about economic hubs. We want those to be located in the centre of towns and villages. That is really important.

The Senator is correct in regard to 5G. We have a monthly meeting with the broadband officers, which has been happening since we established the network about four years ago. The Chairman will be familiar with this network as he launched it when Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment. We have dealt with 5G a number of times. The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, has presented to the network. There is a substantial amount of material that was generated for broadband officers to deal with this issue at a local level.