Written answers

Wednesday, 3 February 2021

Department of Rural and Community Development

Digital Hubs

Photo of Ruairi Ó MurchúRuairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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975. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the status of remote working facilities at digital hubs; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5039/21]

Photo of Heather HumphreysHeather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote working has proven its value in maintaining economic activity and in the continued provision of many public services. Remote working can help to retain talented people in rural communities, encourage mobile workers to move to the regions, provide increased trade for local businesses, and revitalise our rural towns.  

My Department has been working with the Western Development Commission (WDC) over the last year to develop an integrated network of remote working hubs along the Atlantic Economic Corridor (AEC), from Kerry to Donegal.  The WDC has identified and mapped more than 100 remote working hubs which serve that region. 

This project is now being extended to a national scale. A Working Group, chaired by the Secretary General of my Department, was established last October to oversee the development of a National Remote Working Hub Network.  The first phase of this Group’s work is to identify, map, survey and classify the various remote working facilities available throughout the country.  

This work will lead to the establishment of an integrated network of remote working facilities with shared back-office services for the hubs, and a common booking engine for users.  This will become a significant knowledge asset to inform future investment in remote working facilities.

In addition, since 2016 my Department has been working on the Broadband Connection Points (BCP) initiative, which is now rolling out across the country. BCPs are amongst the first deliverables under the National Broadband Plan in the State intervention area and will provide free public access to high-speed wifi broadband at approximately 300 locations in some of the most remote parts of the country. The location of all BCPs which have been installed or which are planned at any point in time is available at: https://nbi.ie/bcp-map/.  Many BCPs have the potential to provide remote working facilities.

I secured an additional €5 million this year under my Department's Town and Village Renewal Scheme for investment in remote working facilities at hubs and BCPs throughout the country and I hope to be in a position to announce details of this funding stream shortly.

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