Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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731. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development the total number of hubs onboard in each county since the National Hub Network connectedhubs.ie was launched; the total amount of funding allocated in each county for same in tabular form. [60262/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Our Rural Future, Ireland’s Rural Development Policy was launched in early 2021. The policy recognises the opportunity for rural rejuvenation that remote working presents and the potential of remote working hubs as key economic assets for our rural towns and villages.

In May 2021 I launched the National Hub Network and its online platform, connectedhubs.ie.  The connectedhubs.ie platform offers a suite of booking, hub management and e-commerce applications to members of the Network. The platform also facilitates the sharing of innovation, experience and best practices across the community. These supports serve to maximise benefit to member hubs, hub clients, employers, local communities and the wider economy.

To date, 295 hubs have joined the National Hub Network and been on-boarded to the connectedhubs.ie platform. This number is growing all the time meaning we are well on track to meet our target of 400 remote working hubs nationwide by 2025. A breakdown by county of on-boarded hubs has been provided in Appendix 1. 

In recent years, my department has supported the establishment and development of remote working and enterprise facilities through programmes such as the Town and Village Renewal Scheme and the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund.In terms of direct funding supports for hubs on the connected hubs network, in 2021 and 2022  my Department provided €14 million in funding to almost 200 projects via the Connected Hubs fund.  This funding enabled successful applicants to add additional capacity to existing remote working infrastructure in digital hubs and Broadband Connection Points across the network.