Ms Orla Martin:

Regarding skills, the local enterprise offices are involved with clients in many co-working spaces in assisting them in enterprise training, networking and business development. That is happening and that training opportunity is open to tenants of a co-working hub who may be working there only one day a week and spend the other days working with a business in a larger city. I referenced a new hub we will be establishing, STREAM Create Suite. As it will deal with big data, we are linking in with courses on data analytics provided by Athlone Institute of Technology, Trinity College, some of the Skillnet courses and other groupings, including some in the private sector. That will be a strong aspect of that new hub. Other hubs are doing similar things.

Many of the libraries are working on developing e-platforms. They have many new journals, reports and materials online. I know from talking to the head of library services in Offaly that their usage has increased 70% in the past year. That linked in with the open library systems feeds in very well with the area of remote working.

Regarding the difference between working in a co-working hub and working from home, even if broadband access was available at home, we have clients who tell us that their businesses have specified that they need to be working from a co-working hub and not from a converted room at home. Plenty of people feel they need the discipline of working in a hub and there is also the social aspect. Social interaction and engaging with people from different backgrounds at different levels of business have been very beneficial to people working in hubs.