Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

In response to what the Minister said, I too would be seriously concerned if we are talking about the centres of cities only. As I stated earlier, we must also consider the centres of our towns and villages. One must also take into account the lack of balance in this country. The European Commission has written to us to tell this Government that the north west and western region has been downgraded to a region in transition. We need to make sure that we address that and that we positively discriminate in favour of the people living in these areas and the people we want to bring into these areas. One of the tools to achieve this is remote working and co-working in our towns and villages. I agree that there must be a blended working environment but, if we are to concentrate on bringing people back into the cities, we will be doing a huge disservice to the people in the regions and we will get more letters from the European Commission telling us that our regions have been further downgraded. We need to grasp this urgently.

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