Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber for this very important debate. I acknowledge the proposer of the motion, Senator Currie, as it affects all parts of Irish society, including rural and urban areas. It is a key because society has changed so dramatically in the past year. We are now catching up with how society is working. The motion encapsulates the view of the public, so it is important we have the debate.

Many elements of the remote working strategy must be discussed but I will touch on just three because I know time is tight. The first is broadband, which has been mentioned by many people in the Chamber this afternoon. It is a key driver in ensuring equality of service and opportunity for people in both urban and rural areas. The national broadband plan, controversial as it was, will be key to ensuring that equality.We must accelerate that plan and get more information out to the public. People need to know when the installation in their property will happen. That information is not fully on the national broadband website at present and we must do more in that regard. As was mentioned by other Members, the national broadband plan will change Ireland forever, particularly rural Ireland. The opportunity to have high-speed broadband in every house in Ireland will change how we do business. A person in Goleen in west Cork who has the opportunity to have high-speed broadband will not have to travel for two hours to Cork city to work as the person will be able to work from that beautiful, remote part of the world. That is the advantage of having broadband in that part of the country.

The concept of how we are going to change our society will be a big issue. The remote working strategy is very important, but there must be changes across all Departments. There has to be a whole-of-government approach because it involves every Department, whether the Department's responsibility is local government, finance or environment. All Departments have a crucial role in ensuring that the strategy works. I wish to mention one anomaly in the system, and the Minister of State will be aware of this from his time in local government. There is an exemption in place for dwellings whereby there can be a development at the back of the dwelling of less that 25 sq. m. In my constituency people are opting to develop what are basically pods in which they can work remotely from home. They have the opportunity to work from home, so they are now going to build these exempted developments at the back of their houses.

However, one of the anomalies in the system is that the 25 sq. m includes all development on the site, whether it is a garden shed, a pump house or, in the case of the constituent who spoke to me, a tree house. All of these must be taken into consideration in that 25 sq. m. We must examine the planning regulations in that regard. The world has moved on but, unfortunately, the planning regulations have not. To have a restricted development of just 25 sq. m that takes into consideration every part of the development, be it a pump house, garden shed or tree house, makes no sense. A 25 sq. m development is a modest development when one considers what we are seeking to provide in this case, which is nothing more than a room so the individual can work from home. There is a plethora of those planning applications being made throughout the country. I have six of them, currently, in west Cork. These people want and need to work from home. They want to plan for the future. We are going to provide them with the broadband, so we must change the planning regulations so they have that opportunity.

There are other people who do not want to work from home. They want to work in an e-centre or hub. These facilities are very important. There are hubs in places such as Skibbereen, where the Ludgate hub is one of the most amazing centres one can see. There is also Brookpark Business Centre in Dunmanway, another state-of-the-art centre. These work spaces that provide hot desks and other amenities are important because they provide a dynamic whereby people do not simply have to work from home but can come to a centre and work there as well. We must invest more in that strategy. There is no single fix to this issue - people want choice. As all of us are aware, working from home for five days per week is very taxing, to say the least. To have the opportunity of spending three of those days in a hub or something similar is the model people are talking about, because they want to have that break. It also helps how society is going to deal with it. Whether one has a coffee shop or is the owner of a shop in a town, one wants to have footfall and the ability to still make a living. There are issues that must be teased out.

However, I return to my first point, that this will have to be a whole-of-government approach involving all Departments. If we have that opportunity, we can do something special. The broadband is on the way. It is being brought to areas in my part of the world at present. The national broadband plan is up and running within a mile of my part of the country. That is what we have seen, so we must now join the other dots together to ensure that rural Ireland can thrive.