Ms Anna-Marie O'Rourke:

Yes, it is a local authority building. I referred earlier to The Hive, which is a local authority initiative under the local enterprise office and which is a co-working space. The problem in County Leitrim is the lack of broadband and the issues faced by rural-based small businesses in getting their content out there. We have one example of a person whose total contract work is with BBC UK. He has to come twice a week to Carrick-on-Shannon from Mohill to download his workload and send it out. This arrangement works really well for him because he wanted to relocate back to County Leitrim from the UK and to bring up his children in the Mohill area.

I refer to the divide between the north and south of the county in terms of the lack of public transport. An artist recently said to me at an opening event in the sculpture centre that it would take him 24 hours to get by public transport from Manorhamilton to Carrick-on-Shannon. He was working on a programme with Ballinamore community school and the lack of public transport was an issue for participants working at the sculpture centre. There are many spaces available around Carrick-on-Shannon, Ballinamore and any of the towns in County Leitrim but the resources are not there.