Ms Mary Hurley:

I know from our own engagement on Cork that this is an area Deputy Burke is really interested in. The connected hub space is such an important issue for rural Ireland. I will give him a quick update. In recent years, we have approved in the order of €150 million for hubs and community facilities to support remote working. That comes from the town and village renewal fund, the rural regeneration fund and various other funds.

The Deputy asked for an update on the number of connected hubs. There are 310 on the network at the moment. These are hubs that are mapped and that people can go in and use. We would be hopeful that there would be further hubs, bringing the number to 400 by the end of the year. A huge amount of work is being done in this space. I have seen them myself as I go around the country. I was in one in Donegal not so long ago and in a number of hubs in Waterford. We have 11,000 users registered on the hubs. We know they are just registered users, but we also know that up to 25,000 people use those hubs on an occasional basis.