Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Our Rural Future, Ireland's rural development policy, recognises the potential of remote working hubs as key economic assets for our regional towns and villages. Therefore, in May 2021, I launched the national hub network and its online platform, namely, connectedhubs.ie. The network brings together a. range of hubs catering for a wide variety of enterprise, community, remote and co-working needs. The national hub network currently comprises of 281 hubs across the State. I anticipate that 300 hubs will be live on connectedhubs.ieby the end of this year and at least 400 hubs will be on board by the end of 2025. Eight of the 281 hubs on the connectedhubs.ieplatform today are located in County Louth and a further ten hubs throughout the county have been invited to join the network.

I am pleased to confirm that my Department continues to provide support for the establishment and development of hubs through a range of its schemes. For example, a number of the hubs in Louth were successful under the first two connected hubs funding calls which provided support for hubs in developing their facilities and their capacity, while my Department also continues to invest significantly in hubs through schemes such as the town and village renewal scheme and the rural regeneration and development fund.

I remain committed to leveraging Ireland's hub sector as a key asset in ensuring that we can deliver on the Government's vision for rural Ireland as set out in Our Rural Future. The Deputy was absolutely right when he said that people can work in a hub the same way as they can work in a city. The hubs are all well kitted out. I have been to see many of them. We would like to encourage more people to take them up because it saves that long commute and it is better for the environment. Remote working has been a game-changer for rural Ireland. I am very committed to it.

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