Mr. Ken Tobin:

I want to specifically focus on Deputy Ó Cuív's point regarding údarás and g-tech hubs. I am very familiar with the hubs. However, I would express a note of caution. I am aware of a number of community-led hubs that have been established through various funds which are still lying idle. All investment into these hubs must be demand-led or at least have an avenue with respect to who will fill them. There is no point in making commitments to local communities saying that we will put a hub in their region and provide broadband access but then no one goes to work in it and there is no economic benefit to that town. This is an anecdotal example. I am very aware of hubs that are vacant because either the infrastructure was not right or there was no demand for those hubs or there was not an avenue and a connection with Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland to provide this as a landing pad solution for companies that are interested in those locations.

It is not always about developing hubs. In some cases remote working might be a better home working solution for those rural towns where we can enable people's homes so that they can work from home. I accept the point about the isolation of working from home. I did it for 18 months and it is what drove me to set up our hub. Some 30% of the people in our three hubs are remote workers. Some are there one or two days a week just to make that connection with other people. Some of them would have come from large city offices, for example, where they were surrounded by hundreds of people and are now in their house that is 20 miles outside the nearest large town. I get the point about isolation but urge caution with regard to the development of hubs because it is a waste of investment in those towns if there may be a better solution to provide employment to those towns.