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Joint Committee on Rural and Community Development debate -
Wednesday, 20 Feb 2019

Sustaining Small Rural and Community Businesses, Smart Communities and Remote Working: Discussion (Resumed)

This morning we continue our hearings on the related topics of sustaining small rural and community businesses, smart communities and remote working. The committee has met representatives of several Departments, agencies, representative bodies and other bodies on the theme of sustaining small rural and community business and we are delighted to have representatives of Enterprise Ireland and Offaly County Council's local enterprise office, LEO, with us today. The committee has also considered the implications of Brexit for communities in rural and urban Ireland. We would be interested to hear how we might mitigate the effects of Brexit. Investment in rural broadband and digital technologies opens up opportunities for rural Ireland. At the last meeting of the committee on 6 February we discussed smart communities and remote working with the Minister of State at the Department of Rural and Community Development, Deputy Canney, and representatives of Grow Remote.

Today we welcome representatives of Abodoo, which has worked with Wexford County Council in preparing a talent heat map for County Wexford. Abodoo is also involved in local hubs, Enterprise Ireland, local authorities and LEOs in encouraging local employment. Representatives from HQ Tralee are also present and there is an interesting story about its successes with co-working hubs in Tralee and Listowel in County Kerry. I welcome the following witnesses to the meeting: Mr. Mark Christal, Mr. Michael Brougham and Ms Rowena Dwyer from Enterprise Ireland; Ms Anna Marie Delaney, Ms Orla Martin and Ms Geraldine Beirne from Offaly County Council LEO; Ms Vanessa Tierney and Ms Louise O'Conor from Abodoo; and Mr. Ken Tobin of HQ Tralee and Tralee Chamber Alliance.

I remind members, staff, witnesses and people in the Public Gallery to turn off their mobile telephones as they interfere with the sound system and make it difficult to report on the meeting. Please check that your mobile telephones are switched off. In addition, members and witnesses should ensure that nothing is obstructing the microphones in front of them.

I draw the attention of witnesses to the fact that by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to the committee. However, if they are directed by the Chairman to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and they are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. It is proposed that any submissions, opening statements or other documents supplied by the witnesses to the committee for this meeting be published on the website of the committee. Is that agreed? Agreed.

I invite Mr. Mark Christal of Enterprise Ireland to make his opening statement.

Mr. Mark Christal

I thank the committee for inviting us to today's meeting. I am joined by my colleagues Mr. Michael Brougham, regional director for the midlands and mid-east, and Ms Rowena Dwyer, manager of our policy, planning and corporate relations department. I intend to use my statement as a brief, not to go through it in full but to select the key points.

Enterprise Ireland's primary remit is to support indigenous companies engaged in manufacturing and internationally traded services. The agency also has a responsibility for foreign direct investment in the food and natural resources area. The majority of the companies that Enterprise Ireland works with are small and medium enterprises, SMEs. Through a national network of ten offices the agency works with these companies to assist them to start, innovate, grow their business, target and secure export sales in international markets and strengthen their competitiveness. These companies cross a wide range of sectors and are located in every county throughout the country.

Enterprise Ireland works in partnership with a wide range of enterprise development partners to support a regional enterprise development agenda. These include the local enterprise offices, the business incubation centres and the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland, whose funding comes through Enterprise Ireland. In addition, upon direction from the Government, the agency administers funding schemes to non-agency clients, such as the online retail scheme launched by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation in late 2018 to support eligible SMEs in the retail sector to develop a more competitive online offer.

Reflecting the strength of the Irish economy and of global markets in 2018, Enterprise Ireland companies reported strong employment performance. In 2018 the employment survey reported the highest employment in the history of the agency with 215,207 people employed in Enterprise Ireland-supported companies, 9,119 new jobs created after losses are taken into account and employment growth across all regions. Our clients play an important role in the regional economy. For example, in 2018 some 64% of employment was in client companies located outside Dublin and 61% of new jobs reported were created in companies located outside Dublin. Enterprise Ireland-supported companies sustain over 375,000 direct and indirect jobs nationwide. The total spend in the economy from Enterprise Ireland clients across payroll and goods and services purchased reached €26.79 billion in 2017.

Through our network of 33 international offices, Enterprise Ireland has assisted client companies to increase their exports to a record €22.7 billion in 2017, a growth of 7% compared to 2016's exporting results. Importantly, Enterprise Ireland's clients are increasingly diversifying their global footprint beyond the UK.

We work with client companies under a number of key pillars. First is our work with start-up companies. We have provided full details of that work in the written submission provided to the committee. Worth noting is Enterprise Ireland's new frontiers development programme, the national entrepreneur development programme for early-stage startups, which is run in partnership with 14 institutes of technology throughout the country. Between 2016 and 2018, Enterprise Ireland supported 496 entrepreneurs across the country on this programme. Innovation is essential for companies to be competitive internationally and to win market share. Enterprise Ireland is working with its clients to drive innovation activity via a number of supports In terms of market diversification, Enterprise Ireland is actively working with companies with global ambition to internationalise, and in doing so, diversify their global footprint. Competitiveness is critical for companies to scale, internationalise and assist client companies to stay ahead of competition. In 2018, Enterprise Ireland launched an operational excellence offer. This offer supports established SMEs to target a whole of company transformation, including capital investment, business innovation and training.

There are some challenges of which we are, obviously, very mindful. The outcome of the Brexit negotiations remains uncertain. Brexit will result in increased costs and trade disruptions for both exporting and importing companies. To support client companies navigate potential challenges, Enterprise Ireland has engaged in a programme of building resilience in Irish exporting companies, focused on innovation, market diversification and competitiveness, and addressing the awareness and preparedness of companies to Brexit. Being prepared for Brexit is critical for companies as long-term, structural and disruptive change will emerge. To promote awareness and supported by a national Prepare for Brexit campaign, Enterprise Ireland has developed and launched a Brexit SME scorecard, an interactive online platform which can be used by all companies to self-assess their exposure to Brexit under six business pillars. To date over 4,435 companies have utilised this scorecard. The agency has also launched a Be Prepared grant to support the costs of SME clients up to €5,000 in preparing a plan to mitigate risks and optimise the opportunities arising from Brexit. To date, 156 companies have been approved for support under this initiative. Enterprise Ireland client companies are taking action to prepare for Brexit. A September 2017 survey reported that 38% of clients surveyed had taken Brexit actions. In May 2018 this figure increased to 85% of client companies surveyed. The survey reported that client companies are taking action in areas such as market diversification, developing strategic partnerships, improving operational competitiveness, improving financial management and strengthening business in the UK.

Skills remain a key focus of the agency. Investment in skills and human capital is critical to driving innovation, competitiveness and diversification in Irish businesses. As the economy approaches full employment, the challenges of matching enterprise skills needs with available labour supply comes into greater focus. In partnership with the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation, the agency is supporting client companies to identify and address their critical skills needs.

I turn to support for enterprise development in the regions. Enterprise Ireland is seeking to ensure that all regions throughout the country are growing optimally based on their innate and unique strengths and capabilities. In this way, jobs will be sustained, created and future proofed and the reach of the agency's client base will be expanded. Within an Enterprise Ireland context, there are three critical components of this. First, we support client companies to grow in all regions. Second, we are building a regional infrastructure that can support enterprise activity including co-working. Third, we are harnessing the enterprise potential of regions and the entrepreneurial assets within them. Enterprise Ireland has made a significant investment in supporting the establishment of infrastructure that can house enterprise activity in regions throughout the country. Details are presented in the table included in our written submission and include the national network of business innovation centres and specialist bio-incubation facilities, community enterprise centres, regional accelerators and business innovation centres. I note also the community enterprise initiative under which 32 projects received funding to support public and private community enterprises. The investment detailed has increased the capacity of regions to offer co-working spaces. Co-working facilities have an important role to play in the rebalancing of regional growth nationally. These facilities can help regions to retain skills and talent and assist companies with skills retention. Giving workers the ability to remain in their localities daily has a positive economic and social impact locally.

Under its regional enterprise development fund, Enterprise Ireland has approved €60 million in investment for 42 projects located throughout the country. This competitive fund, provided by Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation through Enterprise Ireland, is a key action to support the Regional Action Plan for Jobs, regional enterprise plans and the Action Plan for Rural Development. In line with its investment in regions to date, corporate strategy and national enterprise and regional development policy, the agency will undertake initiatives that will foster an environment where jobs will be created and sustained in regions allowing people to live and work in their local areas. Such initiatives will include fostering increased resilience and productivity within client companies throughout all regions to enhance productivity and agility to respond to economic shocks, such as those emerging from any kind of Brexit; balancing regional development in rural, urban and regional city locations by maximising the investment in regional infrastructure, such as that in co-working facilities, to retain mobile talent in the regions, and making second sites in regional locations a feasible strategy for agency clients with growth plans. We are also seeking to secure food FDI projects in regions and to address the skills challenge facing clients.

Enterprise Ireland is aware that further efforts are needed to ensure that companies are resilient to the challenges they face as they start and scale in regions throughout the country. The agency understands the important positive and social impact these companies play in their local areas. To this end, the agency will continue to work with client companies to support their efforts on innovation, competitiveness and diversification, which are the key attributes of internationally competitive companies. Second sites, skills needs and co-working spaces in regions that build on the agency's investment will also be a key focus. Enterprise Ireland will continue to work with Government and non-governmental stakeholders to support rural, urban and regional city development so that client companies can build on their ambitious strategies to sustain and create jobs throughout the country. I welcome any questions on these activities and thank the committee for the opportunity to talk with its members this morning.

I thank Mr. Christal and call Ms Orla Martin of the Offaly County Council local employment office.

Ms Orla Martin

I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for the invitation to attend to discuss how we can sustain small rural and community businesses through smart communities and remote working. I am accompanied by Ms Anna Marie Delaney, chief executive of Offaly County Council and Ms Geraldine Beirne, business adviser with our local enterprise office. For the purposes of this statement, I intend to address four areas, namely local enterprise office, or LEO, involvement; the local authority contribution; the wider context, future development and policy suggestions.

There are 31 LEOs across the local authority network. A LEO is the first stop shop for anyone wishing to start a business in Ireland. LEOs also promote entrepreneurship and act as advocates and catalysts for the establishment of a best-practice enterprise culture. Across the network of 31 LEO offices, staff are actively involved in supporting co-working hubs. Some do this through local authority hubs and some do it through their involvement with publicly supported designated activity companies, DACs, or companies limited by guarantee, CLGs.

The primary focus of LEOs is to encourage entrepreneurship and start-ups. In this context, managed co-working hubs are a valuable addition to the ecosystem of enterprise supports. They provide much more than a physical centre for start-ups and expanding enterprises. The interactions between early stage entrepreneurs, remote workers, more experienced business owners and LEO staff and supports contribute strongly to the enterprise culture of a town or village. Tenants may or may not be directly supported, depending on the nature of the relevant business, but a wide cohort is supported through LEO entrepreneurial development programmes, networking and other business supports. I refer in particular to sector-specific hubs. Managed co-working hubs with sectoral themes provide new opportunities to develop clusters of expertise and innovation. Sector-specific hubs include food hubs and other hubs with a defined theme. For example, we established The Junction business innovation centre in Offaly in 2015. This centre has a special focus on design, software and renewable energies. We are building on this with funding of almost €500,000 from Enterprise Ireland's regional development fund to develop the STREAM creative suite in Birr. This new co-working hub will leverage the big data generated from the Irish low frequency array, I-LOFAR, radio telescope and connect researchers and businesses in areas using big data.

The theme is STREAM, an acronym for science, technology, research, engineering, arts and mathematics. The businesses include everything from animation to astronomy to robotics to telecoms to software. A dedicated hub such as this can create a very compelling proposition for IDA Ireland to attract related foreign direct investment to the area. Furthermore, sector specific hubs can be a beacon for members of the diaspora looking to return or invest in their home counties.

The Local Government Reform Act 2014 provided for the strengthening of the role of the local authorities in economic, social and community development. Over recent years, local authorities have been contributing to the delivery of the physical infrastructure of co-working hubs and, in many cases, have been providing support for operational costs. Some hubs have been undertaken directly by local authorities and others have been delivered with support funding through LEADER, the town and village renewal scheme, urban and rural regeneration and Enterprise Ireland regional development funds. Furthermore, local authorities have been providing supports for the development of smart communities via the local authority network of broadband officers. They also prioritise needs through the network of 296 broadband communication points throughout Ireland and collaborate with providers and funders to provide fibre and Wi-Fi solutions for businesses, communities and tourist areas. Library services provide meeting rooms and space for informal hot-desking and for pre-start-ups researching business ideas. The local community and development committees assist community groups to incorporate co-working spaces into community centres. With regard to skills audits and commuter surveys, local authorities, in conjunction with the LEOs and business support units, are commissioning research data to stimulate economic investment. These data will also highlight opportunities for remote working and cluster development.

In a wider context, remote working in all of its forms can be very beneficial to individuals, businesses, communities and the environment. Volunteer groups such as Grow Remote are playing an important role in communicating the benefits of remote working. Individuals can benefit from reduced commutes and increased work-life balance. By introducing remote working, businesses can retain staff and grow staff numbers by accessing a wider talent pool. Communities benefit as busy co-working hubs contribute to vibrant towns and villages. This, in turn, leads to increased spend in the locality. The environment benefits from a reduction in carbon emissions. A reduction of commuters benefits Dublin and allows it thrive as an international business and visitor destination. The inclusion of remote working and co-working hubs as strategic objectives or supporting actions in a number of the regional enterprise plans demonstrates the importance of the concept and commitment to further development.

With regard to future development and policy suggestions, leveraging the opportunities of co-working hubs requires skilled managers. At present, the funding supports for managers are for three years' salary. We suggest funding support for five years would be more appropriate to allow the centres the required timescale to become viable and self-sustaining.

The next phase is enhanced connectivity between hubs and will involve exploring ways to support a formal network of co-working hubs so as to leverage economies of scale in research, collaboration, training and funding opportunities, include landing spaces for foreign direct investment and explore ways to facilitate IDA Ireland companies to establish an initial footprint in a town or region via the use of co-working hubs. The promotion of co-working hubs and other forms of remote working could benefit from legislation on developing a national policy on remote working. This could include appropriate legislation on employment law and could enable remote working to become the norm. We reference the UK flexible working regulations of 2014. Employers could be incentivised through consideration of an enhanced Revenue scheme or allowance for remote workers. There could also be public sector pilots that explore opportunities for public sector employees. This could include enhanced opportunities for remote working, either from home or through the use of dedicated co-working hubs in local authority buildings on a reciprocal basis.

I thank committee members for their time. The document pack we have provided includes details of some initiatives taking place throughout the country.

I thank Ms Martin and call Ms Tierney.

Ms Vanessa Tierney

I am delighted to have been invited before the committee and I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for the invitation to discuss sustaining small rural and community businesses, smart communities, and remote working. I am joined by Ms Louise O'Connor. We launched Abodoo in Gorey in north County Wexford. We were a LEO client and have moved on to Enterprise Ireland. We launched a year and a quarter ago from a co-working space, so we have a personal story about the impact of co-working on our business.

I have been involved in recruitment and talent acquisition for more than 15 years. Seven or eight years ago I was restricted from working because of illness and I could not commute. It was then I began to realise that around the globe many professionals could be working but for whatever reason, such as family commitments or childcare, they are restricted from doing so. The reason we are here today is to speak about a successful pilot we ran in Wexford with the support of Wexford LEO and the local authority. We had a real opportunity to identify the skills in County Wexford and present them to companies considering locations throughout the country. If we look at Ireland, our unemployment rate is very low, which is brilliant, but we still have 79 unemployment blackspots throughout the country. Mirroring these with co-working capacity provides a real opportunity to position rural Ireland as an opportunity for companies.

There are three key pillars for inward investment in rural Ireland. The first is office space and capacity, and the Abodoo platform now lists more than 200 co-working spaces, which means there is at least one in every county. The second pillar is connectivity, and this is improving. From a remote working perspective, there are no connectivity challenges to working in rural Ireland at present because every county has connectivity and every co-working space has the best connectivity. I moved back from England four years ago to 3 Mb broadband in the house. We now have 140 Mb, so there is a real opportunity for companies. The third pillar required by Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland is the missing ingredient, and this is skills and talents. We must question why Facebook and Salesforce make announcements to employ people in Dublin when 700,000 skilled people from throughout the country could be employed. What is missing is the ability to provide data on them.

Until our pilot, information provided on the skills available was through the census and alumni information from various colleges. The way we have built Abodoo means we capture a lot of data on what people are looking for with regard to skills, salary expectations and connectivity. We were requested to produce a talent heat map of the available skills, initially just in technology, to present to some companies looking at the co-working space in Gorey. We ran the pilot over six weeks. We ran marketing campaigns above and below the line. We had advertisements on the back of buses showing a mother and son and a phrase suggesting spending more time with the real boss, and we had signs suggesting the train will miss you.

Over a few weeks, hundreds of people registered. We assumed they would be the tired exhausted commuters from Wexford to Dublin, but they have been a range of people, including those outside the country who want to come home but for whom house prices in Dublin are too expensive. They stated that if they could go to Wexford, they would return in a flash. We had people with mobility issues who cannot get to Dublin. There were also very skilled parents in their mid to late 30s who could not justify going to Dublin when the cost of childcare was added in. There were also older people who were not ready to retire. An array of people registered. We captured all of this, mined it for data and produced a talent heat map that gives granular information not only on technology skills but on exactly how many Python or Java developers there are.

One of the surprising facts that came out of the talent heat map was that salary expectations were 10% to 20% lower than in cities. I raise this as a very big point for employers.

Many employers think that they will have to make a significant investment to embrace smart working. However, they save on expectations alone because house prices can be lower by one third or a half. The other thing which surprised us was that only half the people were in Wexford. The other half were in Dublin or elsewhere and said that they wanted to return. We ran the case study this time last year. We provided it to the LEO, Enterprise Ireland, the county council and IDA Ireland. In September, IDA Ireland successfully landed the first company into the hatch lab. It intends to employ hundreds of people in the next three years. Significantly, it wants to embrace what we call smart working.

I will say something bold. I do not think Ireland is ready for remote working as people assume that means working from home. We are ready for smart working and more flexibility in our working model. Companies such as the one that has landed in Gorey intend to let people work two to three days in the co-working capacity and the other days at home. That means that even though the building has only seating for 300, 500 staff can be employed because of the use of hot-desking.

We have worked and collaborated with LEOs, county councils, IDA Ireland, and Enterprise Ireland, and we are undertaking a roadshow with the Small Firms Association to educate people locally. We are partnered with Grow Remote which is doing a great job at a community level. We have a national partnership with Vodafone, educating people around smart working and educating businesses about its benefits and value. We are looking to support Vodafone in opening up more gigabit hubs. The gigabit hubs initiative was launched in 2017. Since then, 29 new companies have moved their business to the hubs with an additional 80 people, with future plans for an extra 200 jobs over the next three years.

I will outline some of the benefits of smart working from a company's perspective. As a small country, 1.9 million people commute to work daily. People who sit in traffic are quite tired by the time they get to the office, particularly when children are thrown into the mix. It has been proven globally that attrition improves by 40% when employers embrace flexible working. Productivity increases by 15% and the overall saving to the company on average is €10,000 and to the individual is €7,000 annually. That is €7,000 that the individual can save. If such people are staying in their local community, we can ask where they are likely to spend this.

The LEOs have invited Abodoo to make a presentation to all their 31 offices in April about our work in Wexford with a view to where we can extend it. We are looking forward to this. We are building technology not only to pull talent to heat maps but in future to do things such as connecting people in co-working places at a local level so that people with similar skills can come together, as has been done in Offaly. We are launching smart working retreats - a lovely way to build on tourism - and leveraging the amazing co-working spaces that are coming up around the country, such as converted banks, to allow people to holiday and work here for a month. We are plugging in e-learning. The beauty of smart working, working from home, connectivity and co-working is that it is possible to learn from anywhere and upskill. That will be the future.

If we can work out a national plan for remote or smart working, it will have some key benefits. One is that it improves air quality by reducing carbon emissions. Spending in the local economy will increase. We can reduce unemployment in blackspots. We can give people back time that they can spend with their families. We are asking the Government's assistance on a number of areas in the coming years. First is help in introductions that would help us to fast-track the conversations that we are having county to county. Second, we seek support around talent mapping skills, extending what we have done in Wexford to the whole country. That would be data that we could provide to companies in Dublin, Cork and elsewhere as well as companies that are in talks with IDA Ireland about locating in Ireland. Finally, we seek support from the disruptive technology fund to mobilise the app that we are using, which is on the web, and localise it so that it is key to each county.

With 42% of the population living in rural Ireland compared with 27% living in rural areas across Europe, we have a real opportunity to become the smart working leader of the European Union. We can reverse the brain drain and bring back some of the half million people who have left our country in the past ten years.

We have provided the Wexford talent heat map to members for their information. I will conclude with our motto: life is a journey, not a commute.

I thank Ms Tierney and call Mr. Ken Tobin of HQ Tralee and Tralee Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Ken Tobin

In 2016, my business partner, Tom O’Leary, and I set about funding and developing the first co-working hub in County Kerry, which is also one of the first in Ireland. As others noted, there are now more than 200 such hubs around the country. Privately funded and operated, HQ Tralee grew from one building in Tralee town centre in 2016, a property which had sat idle for more than nine years, to a second building in Tralee the following year, and in October 2018 we opened a third building, this time in Listowel, a small town about ten miles from Tralee.

Today our hubs provide a home for almost 200 people in County Kerry. We recognised the essential need for these spaces within Tralee and Listowel, like many other towns around Ireland. In total we have provided in excess of 15,000 cu. ft of shared office, co-working, meeting and community space within our hubs at a fraction of the cost of a space in a larger city. Our hubs all offer 1 Gb broadband connection using a combination of local Internet service providers and the SIRO-Vodafone’s gigabit hub initiative. We house a wide range of individuals and companies which are outlined in my submission.

I want to highlight some key factors that we have learned through our involvement with this industry, as one of the first groups to operate in Ireland. The committee will have heard from previous speakers, not only today, but also in recent sittings, that remote working, enabling broadband connectivity, and supporting hubs are critical to reviving and sustaining rural and regional towns. I will not reiterate the same things but rather demonstrate what has actually happened.

One of the key things we have learned over recent years is that the importance of these hubs is not solely on the service that it provides for companies and remote workers, but in their economic and social benefit to a town. In the past three years we have seen every day examples of how a hub and supporting people to return to a town can actually benefit the local economy. This is not just on a financial level, but it is worth noting that our hubs have an average salary of more than twice that of the local economy, which means double the spend per person in the locality.

On a human level, we have seen business owners and newly returned remote workers getting involved in supporting local Tidy Town groups, chambers of commerce, sports clubs, charities and volunteer organisations. One of the main benefits of working from a regional town, with low commute times and a better quality of life, is that these people have more time to get involved in organisations and causes that matters to them. As these individuals typically have been used to a city commute and a longer working week, they have more time on their hands to get involved. Nor is it just the town in which the hub is based that benefits. Returning remote workers and SME business owners are also opting to live in quieter villages or townlands near, but not in, the main town. Typically, the people we see returning are at the age that they are considering starting, or have recently started, a family. To a degree the companies and remote workers we have supported in returning to Tralee and Listowel have returned because they had a connection with the location. We have found it tough to attract back the younger generation in their mid-20s and graduates.

On a business level, there are two critical elements to providing this opportunity for regional and rural towns. The hubs support the growth not only of the businesses based within the hubs, but also the businesses in that town. This is not anecdotal, this is real. We see it every day ourselves. The support to businesses is very wide and varied. In view of time constraints, I will focus on a couple of key items. One area is staff retention. If any employer of an SME in Dublin or Cork in specific technical sectors is asked, he or she will respond that staff retention is the one thing that is killing their business. This issue of not being able to hang on to good staff is being compounded by a number of key factors over which this Government has an element of control. Quality staff are being hoovered up by the large multinationals, and invariably they are being lured from our indigenous companies at an alarming rate. We all welcome each announcement of the next Facebook, Google or Salesforce entering the Dublin market, but behind that is a real concern that smaller companies will not be able to retain their skilled staff. Each big announcement also adds even more pressure onto an already overheated housing market in our large cities, forcing even more people to seek housing farther out of the city, adding hours each day to their commute.

What the hubs in regional locations offer to these companies is an opportunity. I cannot stress this enough. We are selling ourselves short if we pitch these regional locations as a compromise. These regional locations are an absolute godsend to many indigenous SMEs. For example, a little over a year ago, one company joined us primarily because the larger companies in Dublin were poaching its staff.

Since coming down, this two-man operation has grown to seven people and by the end of 2019, will have grown to 20 people, purely because it is able to retain its staff based in a regional town.

To support staff retention, and to echo previous speakers, these hubs present a major opportunity for large organisations in Dublin to retain their staff by allowing them to work remotely, and have a better quality of life. We have seen this ourselves, but larger companies need to be put under greater pressure to allow their staff have this choice. As mentioned earlier, all bar one of our existing remote workers pay for themselves. Their companies will not support them. While they say they will support them, they will not financially support them to relocate to a regional location.

The second set of businesses that benefit from the hubs are actually not based in the hubs themselves. Those business are the local ones, the shops, restaurants and pubs, around the town. When we opened our first hub in 2016, we knew that the streets around our hub needed some support. Our first building in Tralee was a large vacant property. While a fantastic modern building, it had lain idle for over nine years and faced out onto a semi-derelict side street. We developed a plan to promote the neighbouring shops, bars and restaurants and help them raise their footfall. We formed a community of businesses that worked together which led to us taking on a privately funded regeneration project for the street around us in Tralee to such an extent that two new business opened up in that vacant street.

Listowel, where we opened our latest hub, did not need such support. They are national Tidy Towns award winners from 2018. Where they needed our support was on infrastructure. We placed too much emphasis on the national broadband roll-out. In the case of Listowel, we did not have access to high-speed fibre. We were faced with a choice of operating off 70 Mb broadband or doing it ourselves. Therefore, we engaged with a local Internet service provider and did it ourselves. We invested in that company. We supported that company to provide 1 Gb broadband to our building in Listowel, which is now available to the entire town.

I mentioned earlier that where we struggle is in attracting the younger generation to our hubs. Through my work with Tralee Chamber Alliance, Tralee's chamber of commerce, and connecting with chambers all over the country, I know that Tralee and Listowel are not unlike many towns in regional Ireland. There has been a drain of talent and younger people over the past number of years and a very visible cause and effect of this drain is the daytime vibrancy and nightlife in these towns. Our high streets are struggling, rural bars and nightclubs are in free fall, our institutes of technology are fighting the larger universities to attract students and as the cities grow and expand, the younger generation are being lured and retained there. Kerry, for example, now has the oldest average age in the country, and the statistics show that it has a dip in the mid-20s age bracket. After the collapse of the Celtic tiger when so many of our young people left Ireland, everyone cried foul for a lost generation. Today, the same thing is happening, only that they are emigrating from a rural to a city location.

When I started my submission, I said I would not focus on issues that others have looked at already. I want to finish with what we in business call "the ask". This is about connecting the dots and trying to see can we do this in an accelerated meaningful way. We already mentioned that there are more than 200 hubs around the country. More will be built but what we need to do is increase the demand for companies and remote workers to go to these regional locations. Based on our experience, we see two quick-win items that could be done now.

First, we see an immediate need for a Government backed team - supported by Enterprise Ireland, the LEOs and the local chambers of commerce - the sole remit of which is to connect SMEs in Dublin and Cork with regional town hubs and remote work organisations. Utilising the industry connections of Enterprise Ireland and the on-the-ground connections of the local chambers, this team should have the sole function of providing a funnel of companies and remote workers who want to escape the larger cities to set up in regional locations. This team, as was mentioned earlier, should have the backing of a dedicated incentive programme to support these companies and remote workers in their relocation. There are numerous examples, in the States and on the Continent, of successful incentive programmes where relocation assistance packages are provided to enable remote workers and SMEs to move to regional locations and these are done for a fraction of what is currently being spent on other avenues to create jobs. Not only would this have the benefit of supporting these regional towns but it would take the pressure off the larger cities.

Second, we need support in the regional towns to attract back and retain the younger generation and families. Without adequate funding to enhance the offering on the ground, younger workers will not consider these regional towns. Specific investment must be made in towns to increase their vibrancy and support the retail and service sectors so that younger workers do not feel like that they are compromising on their experiences. Locations must become more vibrant. I would suggest utilising the document, A Framework for Town Centre Renewal. My ask would be to legislate for the establishment of funded teams to support these regional towns. I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak.

I thank Mr. Tobin. I will call on members as they indicated. Senator Coffey and Deputies Martin Kenny and Michael Collins will make up the first round. After that, I will take another round.

I welcome all the delegations that have come here this morning to share their experiences and offer advice to us as policymakers. On this committee, our particular concern is regional and rural areas and how we can sustain livelihoods in those regions.

For the record, I acknowledge the work of Enterprise Ireland over the past number of years. According to the recorded figures for 2018, there are now 2.23 million people working in Ireland. It is the highest ever figure. I am conscious of the work of the city and county LEOs as well, supporting entrepreneurs and new businesses. Many such businesses started in the face of a harsh recession. It was a bounce back by amazing people supported by the State agencies and the LEOs. We should always acknowledge that when we can and I certainly want to do so here this morning.

There are new challenges now. With the employment levels where they are, quality of life, smarter working and sustainability are the challenges for Ireland and we have a role in this committee to try to devise new policies to address the issues the delegations have raised here this morning. I told some of them, on the way in, that often they are way ahead of the posse. Often we are in a bubble here in Leinster House dealing with retrospective issues, which we have to do, but the real vision often comes from outside. We are hearing it here today again and I want to acknowledge that, especially with the likes of Abodoo. We have had Grow Remote in here as well. These are people who have a vision for how our society should develop and where employment should go. It certainly can fit with the needs of modern families and work-life patterns.

I was interested to hear that talent heat maps of Wexford have been produced. Before we do anything in terms of policy, of course one needs to have evidence of where our assets and resources are and how we should best leverage those. Often the easy answers are right in front of our noses. Wexford has shown the way in terms of mapping out the talent that is available to it if a business wants to establish itself in Wexford, in smarter hubs or whatever. It is a good starting point for anyone. I take on board Ms Tierney's recommendation that we should have a national talent map. Recently, I was in discussions with a company that is looking at establishing in the south east in the financial services area. We met IDA Ireland representatives and the first thing they said was that they would have to do a skills analysis for the south east. I had a bit of an argument with them. I said that most of our graduates, unfortunately, have left the south east and are either in Dublin or elsewhere. I stated that the skills analysis should not only be of the south east. In fact, it should be of those all over the world because people want to move home. I was delighted to hear Ms Tierney repeat it here this morning. There is a mindset in officialdom. I acknowledge the great work IDA Ireland is doing but it more or less boxes off regions and looks at where the talent in a region is presently, whereas I believe it must have a far more outward looking view. I am only using the south east as an example because I am from the south east. I am from Waterford, which is one of the employment black spots in the country. It is one of the areas which has suffered the greatest brain drain. Our graduates qualify in Waterford but, unfortunately, leave the region. That happens right around the country. Often I have compared Dublin with an economic vortex that is sucking in our best resources.

We need to think of new ways to try and get those brains and those graduates - as Mr. Tobin said, that life - back into the regions. I certainly welcome the positive outlook that has been presented to us here this morning. It is not merely an outlook. There are real solutions being presented here. I visited Boxworks, a co-working location in Waterford. They have created a smart hub where hot desks or small offices are provided to any person, entity or body that wants to come in and work. They are sharing ideas and resources and building out. The good news is the second Boxworks office is opening in a few weeks in Waterford and it is doing exactly what the witnesses are talking about.

The evidence shows the entrepreneurs and the people are ahead of the policymakers. We need to catch up. How we do that, I believe, is the discussion we need to have here today.

Do we need to change our view on co-ordination overall? While I acknowledged the work of Enterprise Ireland at the start, should it have a specific department to consider how to connect the hubs and new ways of supporting entrepreneurs? I am aware it is doing this and its representatives will tell us it is but we need specific resources to attend to the new demands that exist. These include demands for smarter living, smarter travel, smarter work, co-operation and joining resources. There are examples. The delegates stated there are 200 hubs around Ireland. I mentioned two, in Waterford. We need to co-ordinate all of these and secure policy support and incentives. How do we do this better? If the witnesses were in our shoes, as policymakers, where would they believe real change is needed to bring about the gear shift that is required? Rather than looking at traditional ways of supporting employment, how can we engage with the employers to build their confidence? We need to build their confidence to show this is a new way of working and that they can trust their staff, perhaps using a stepped process. Reference was made to going to a co-working location first, perhaps on a part-time basis, and perhaps doing the rest from home. There is work to be done on how to build confidence among employers to show them they need not spend a fortune building offices in Dublin, with staff crazed by the cost of living and cost of rent, and that they can proceed in a different way. How can we package this concept and start selling it to employers?

The delegates might bank that question. I call Deputy Martin Kenny.

I welcome all the witnesses and thank them for their contributions. Last week, representatives from Grow Remote were here to talk about the work they are doing on similar lines. I represent Sligo-Leitrim and live in south Leitrim, which is quite rural. It is probably one of the employment black spots mentioned. Interestingly, somebody I was talking to some days ago was considering a job online — I believe it was with eBay — but it had to be done from home because some of the work was to be in the evening and some in the early morning. The individual had no Internet so there was not a chance of getting the job. That is a big problem for people who live in certain rural areas. I accept that high-speed broadband is available in many regional towns, etc., but the problem arises when one goes out into the countryside a bit. We need to address this.

There is great potential, however. It was suggested there should be a Government-backed team to pull it all together Is Grow Remote doing a bit of that? Are other small groups doing part of what is being talked about? Are the delegates saying we need to work in a proper, organised fashion and have the Government step in? I agree this would be the way forward. What can happen is that the process can become bitty rather than streamlined across the whole region.

Mr. Tobin spoke about making regional towns more attractive for people to live and work in. Much of this concerns having the correct infrastructure in place. A good few years ago, Peter Quinn Consultancy Services in Fermanagh carried out a study on foreign direct investment on where companies wanted to send their executives to live and work. It was found that education was a big factor. The companies wanted to know their managers would have good schools, in addition to recreation facilities and hospitals, and that healthcare would be adequately provided for. The study found that executives also like to have nice restaurants and theatres to go to. The companies like to be close to airports so executives can fly in, meet in company offices and get back on a plane and fly away quickly. These infrastructural elements are key but we should not lose sight of the reality that it is not just about good roads and transport; it is also about having the services in place for people who want to live in the areas in question. This will be key to getting people to come back to live in rural areas.

The delegates felt legislation to develop a national policy on remote working is required so it will become the norm. Reference was made to flexible working regulations. There is already legislation for people to have the option of part-time work. An employer has to accept that an employee can request it. We need to examine this in connection with remote working. On the question of incentives for employers, revenue schemes and allowances for remote workers, most people are talking about the private sector whereby a lot of the work is done at home on a laptop, but the public sector also comes into play. While we have had many rows about decentralisation in the past, it is really about getting it right and working out how we can do it properly. I know staff in the public sector who work two days at home and three in the office. Therefore, there is an element of working from home in the public sector. The key task, as Mr. Tobin said, is making sure that we streamline the process and that the Government takes charge of it, organises it, structures it and drives it forward.

Working from home might suit individuals very well when they have children, for example, but as they get on a little and experience the empty nest, they might discover sitting at home in front of the laptop all day is not very sociable. The hubs would be a better model for many.

Let me refer to the rights of the employee. Everyone who works in this establishment is clearly a member of a trade union and has rights, which can be established and worked through. An employee can do something about a problem if one arises. If, however, an employee is working at home, or in a hub where there is only one other employee working for the same company, there needs to be some way to ensure his or her rights will be upheld. Perhaps we could speak to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions about how it is organising in this regard. It is a separate issue.

Co-ordinating this initiative is what we really need to drive. I strongly believe we need to ensure a commitment by the Government to provide the correct infrastructure. A major part of that infrastructure is broadband but there are also other aspects.

When people talk about rural Ireland, they talk about equality. The difference between the equality and equity was explained to me once very well. In rural areas, we need to achieve equity. Consider the circumstances when two people who want to look over a wall that is too high are each given a box of the same size on which to stand. If the first can see over the wall and the second, being a little shorter, cannot, both will have been treated equally but equity will not have been established. We need to see not only equal resources going into rural areas but extra resources to establish equity because they have long been left behind. The area I come from was the last place to see the boom and the first to see the decline. That is what always happens. We need to try to reverse that. I certainly welcome this effort to try to do so. Those are the key points we need to deal with. We need to ensure sufficient commitment. This means some element of the Government needs to take charge. We need to take charge of the infrastructure and consider the rights of the workers when established.

I welcome all those who made presentations today and at our last meeting. There were some very interesting presentations. Much of this debate is based on connectivity. If there is no connectivity, particularly broadband but also mobile phone coverage, it is very difficult to run any type of business.

It is a major issue in my constituency of Cork South-West. Much of it has to do with getting funds from the Government and getting off the ground. It is about making a start. If people can receive support in getting broadband and the funding right, they can start to go places. I see it in Skibbereen with the Ludgate Hub. It is getting the funding it needs and its feet off the ground. It is getting places. However, there is a vacuum in the surrounds of my constituency. I can only speak on its behalf.

Details of the rural regeneration and development fund were released last week. There is nowhere more rural than south-west Cork, as anybody who has been there knows. It is beautiful in the summer, but it must fight on rural matters. There were 48 projects proposed by Cork County Council and we got zero. Therefore, I am right to be very angered. I met some of the community groups over the weekend and they are incensed because they ticked all of the boxes. I looked at those that had received money and some of them were great. I would not take anything from them. However, I can pick out some that are not so great. Coillte received €10 million, but it has its own funds. The Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht received €3.5 million and it also has its own funds. Why are we dipping into the rural generation and development fund to fund these bodies and Departments? Is the overspend on the national children's hospital project the problem and is this a back-door method to top up funding? The problem is that of the 48 projects, most of which are in my constituency but some are in the rest of Cork county, zero was approved. I could name some of them.

I take the point being made by the Deputy and this is the committee which deals with rural and community development. However, the delegates are not in a position to inform the Deputy on the matter.

The Deputy has made charges.

We would need to get the Minister back in to discuss all of that.

I want the Minister back before the committee. This issue is very important.

We will do it another day and I am absolutely open to the idea. However, let us be fair to the delegates.

Many of the projects were very similar to those that got off the ground and received funding or continued to receive it. In a rural community, if we do not receive that type of funding, we will not be able to get our feet off the ground. I would love to be able to bring in groups of people like those involved in the Ludgate Hub in Skibbereen, but it cannot live on its own. West Cork needs that energy. Unfortunately, we do not have broadband. Everybody knows the fact it has not been rolled out is a national matter, rather than one specific to west Cork. It is very hard for us to equal any of the great opportunities on which the delegates have worked. I praise them from a height and would not take anything away from a community or an area that has worked for it. It is an important point and the committee needs to bring the Minister before it to discuss it. He should first explain how the money is being spent and why it is not being spent in rural communities that want to achieve results like those described by the delegates. I wish them the best and I am not taking anything away from what they have done. Nonetheless I have made a valid point and will continue to do so. The announcement of the rural regeneration and development fund was only made last Friday; there was €62 million, but zero went to west Cork. I need answers.

The Minister will be coming before us in early April and I am sure he will answer those questions. He will be asked them by the Deputy. Senator Coffey had a number of points and questions, as did Deputy Martin Kenny.

Ms Vanessa Tierney

There was a question about how we did it. It is multifaceted, as has been highlighted. There are many great groups on the ground, county to county. I am not with a connectivity company, but I can see that a lot of them are making great efforts to connect places; perhaps they are not all homes but certainly they are co-working spaces. A national framework for co-working is required. We have highlighted that in most cases employees are paying their subscription or membership in co-working. WeWork, a phenomenal global co-working company, announced last year that 35% of its members were employees of enterprise accounts. They are attracting the likes of Facebook and Microsoft and can do so because once somebody takes out a subscription with WeWork, there is global access. We suggest we can do the same with Abodoo because we have all 200 on our platform. We need to advance the technology to facilitate subscriptions. That conversation can be taken to the large enterprise and foreign direct investment companies.

There was reference to the national talent heat map. We are ready to go. We just need the green light for the provision of some funding. We achieved what we did quite economically in Wexford and leveraged all of the local public relations and marketing channels available through the council. It was affordable and we got a buy-in. Members will have read that many commuter studies have been carried out and I have spoken to five or six local enterprise offices about their commuter studies. They were great to help to create momentum, but they did not give the detailed and granular skills data that we needed for the finance companies who were seeking finance people in the south east, for example. The beauty of Ireland Inc. becoming involved in national talent mapping is that we would be able to demonstrate the peak or clusters of skills available in finance, for example. They could be available in Waterford or west Cork, when there is connectivity. They could be available in County Offaly. Companies could make decisions based on how they would land there. It is ready to go and no policy is needed. It is just a question of backing.

Mr. Mark Christal

I absolutely agree with the point made about the collaboration needed. With this initiative, there must be collaboration between the public sector organisations, including the local authorities, Enterprise Ireland, the local enterprise offices, IDA Ireland and chambers of commerce. That is really important. Whatever we do, we must ensure we engage and develop approaches that will be meaningful from the perspective of a small and medium enterprise. The typical Enterprise Ireland client has 20 or 30 people who are time-limited. Companies have faced many challenges. Whatever systems or policies we put in place need to be attractive and practical from their perspective.

The issue of skills has been mentioned by a number of people. It is something on which we are very focused. We have a programme, Spotlight on Skills, aimed at helping our clients to identify their skill needs and put them on a path towards engaging with training and education providers to get a response in meeting those skill needs. We have approximately 160 companies throughout the country that have engaged in the programme and are working with the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation to facilitate these companies in engaging with education and training providers. They have also engaged with private providers to procure responses. A number of points mentioned could be built on.

Mr. Christal made some points about collaboration and co-ordination. Often in committees such as this we bring in representatives of agencies who, with the greatest of respect, often work in silos. There is co-ordination but only to a certain degree. Who leads the collaboration and steps up to say they will lead this and make it happen? It should be the likes of Enterprise Ireland, but I am not saying it has a budget to do so. We need to identify some agency that works on behalf of the State to co-ordinate all of what goes on. Could Enterprise Ireland do it within current structures and if it cannot, could it make a pitch to the Department or the Minister? If there are new work patterns, could Enterprise Ireland assist by devising a national strategy to co-ordinate co-working, smart hubs or whatever we might call it? I know that Enterprise Ireland is doing this in individual spaces, but I am talking about taking the lead and bringing all of what we have heard today and in the past together. Is it possible it could do that, for example?

Mr. Mark Christal

It is probably something that could be reflected on. Irrespective of how it is led or who leads it, there is a wide range of stakeholders and enterprises involved and there must be collaboration. We have mentioned local enterprise offices, foreign direct investment and IDA Ireland. We have a client base. I have also mentioned chambers of commerce and the Small Firms Association. There are myriad enterprises and our enterprise base is so diverse that irrespective of who leads it or how it is driven, the collaboration is absolutely essential. I take the point made.

Mr. Ken Tobin

The question of who leads the process is key.

I echo the Senator's point and agree that if the funding and a team were put in place, Enterprise Ireland should be the body to lead it, but I also acknowledge that funding may not necessarily be available in the current structures. It needs to be a dedicated team. Myriad organisations are involved. The committee has heard from Grow Remote and Abodoo and there are individual organisations representing hubs throughout the country. It needs to be one co-ordinated approach and it should not be over-complicated. It is actually quite simple and the issues are obvious. For example, within the SME sector in Dublin there is a huge drain on staff and SMEs are in serious competition with larger organisations to retain them. This would be a win-win. It is very simple to organise once the funding is put in place.

I want to touch on a couple of the questions raised. It is good to acknowledge that for policy makers there is an element of catch-up in this scenario, but it comes down to the key collaboration that needs to happen with those already in the space and policy makers. It should be done without over-complicating things because it is very simple when we break it down.

Should a specific Department be involved? The answer is definitely "Yes". The Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation needs to be involved and take a lead role because it is already in contact with all of the organisations.

Deputy Martin Kenny mentioned connectivity and one of his constituents not being able to take up a role with eBay. We had a similar issue in County Kerry where remote working opportunities with Amazon came our way. Some 60 positions were advertised in the first round, but we could fill only 40 of them because of the problems with broadband in some parts of the county. There are opportunities. Again, these things could be fast-tracked using local Internet service providers who would fast-track the service using a wireless system. In Listowel we have proved it can work in using the coverage provided by local Internet service providers. It is demand-led, but it is further reaching and quicker to get off the ground than investing in the provision of long-term infrastructure.

In regard to regional towns, the framework document for town centre renewal was published a number of years back, but it has not yet gone far enough. There is a collaborative town centre health check programme as part of it and 12 towns have completed the programme, which was step one. Step two is to formulate funded town teams, but, unfortunately, most of the 12 towns have not yet got to that stage. However, there is a framework document and we just need to go one step further. As the Deputy said, it is not always about infrastructure but about vibrancy and sustaining local businesses. It is about the pub, the shop and the restaurant. That is what we need if we are to attract back the younger generation of workers when they graduate from colleges. We do not want them to head off to Dublin. We want to keep them in the regional towns where they went to college. Senator Coffey mentioned this in the case of Waterford. It is the same in the case of Tralee Institute of Technology which is in the battle to retain staff. If we do not have a vibrant town for them to stay in, of course, they will head off to the city. There is a framework in place. We just need to go one step further.

I agree with Deputy Michael Collins. As I married a Bantry woman, I empathise with those living in south-west Cork. However, there is a lot more that could be done in such areas; it is not just about the regeneration fund.

I thank the delegates for their presentations. There is a lot in them and I commend all of them on the good work being done. We talk about some of it as if it was innovation. I was working remotely in London almost 20 years ago without any help in terms of enterprise or anything else. It was just the way it worked. I travelled into the city one day a week and worked from home in Rayleigh the other days, with no fuss. We have an awful lot of catching up to do. It is certainly the way forward here and just needs to be hurried up.

I have a couple of questions. How much funding has been allocated to the LEOs since they were started in 2014, including to meet accumulated staffing and administration costs?

Ms Orla Martin

I have to refer to one of my colleagues in Enterprise Ireland for the total figure.

Mr. Mark Christal

The annual budget is approximately €35 million, although there may be slight variations.

It is a substantial budget to provide employment. What are the plans to maximise potential in the provision of fibre optic cables in the west?

Ms Orla Martin

Pardon.

Where are the various agencies in generating employment and providing for enterprise development in the provision of fibre optic cables in the west? Are the delegates familiar with the issue?

Mr. Mark Christal

I am not familiar enough with it to answer the question. We might come back to the Senator on the specific role we are playing, if any.

The Senator might direct her questions through the Chair. We will seek the interaction that is necessary.

I will. I just find this way to be more effective. It is important that the delegates furnish the committee with information on the progress made in that regard. When we talk about things, we are talking about them in the round. We have talked about the interaction and collaboration between the different agencies involved and the different resources that are available. To me, fibre optic cable is a huge resource that presents an opportunity in the west.

I totally agree, but the issue is dealt with by the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, whereas we are dealing with the area of enterprise and innovation, with delegates from the LEO in County Offaly and a private company which is doing fabulous work in the area of remote working.

It is really about remote working.

Therein lies the problem. We can no longer afford to work in silos. I know that there is a certain degree of collaboration, but this is vital. This is the biggest thing to happen in the west for a long time and will mean that the highest speeds will be available. Another cable is due to be brought through shortly, as well as another from Iceland. Unless we take advantage of them and plan ahead and work closely on such developments, we will never maximise the potential available in the west and rural Ireland.

I want to ask about the connections of the various agencies with Eir. I work remotely on the days I am not in Leinster House and never know in the morning if I will be able to send an email. It is admirable that some of the delegates think there is a wonderful broadband picture, but I can tell them from personal experience that is not the way it is. Another problem with Eir is that I do not know if I will be able to make a mobile phone call. Perhaps five or six times during a conversation it will cut out and then I cannot get through to Eir. Have the agencies represented sat down with Eir to discuss the problems with mobile phone coverage, for instance? It is a fairly basic requirement of any business or operation in working from home.

We will take that question at the end. The Senator might conclude her questions.

That will be more difficult.

I want to ask about Knock airport, on which Enterprise Ireland had discussions, and the potential to connect with flights to Brussels, which would be a real help to people from the west. I also want to ask about the Enterprise Ireland's interaction with the LEADER programme. I concur with the audit skills report. However, many of these reports were carried out in many counties and I would not want us to reinvent the wheel or waste resources. Such audits were carried out when I worked with the enterprise companies.

Other natural resources are used in creating employment and developing enterprise. Seaweed is one such natural resource, from which many good products are made. What interaction does Enterprise Ireland have in licensing the use of some of these natural resources? How much of the funding from the disruptive technologies innovation fund was allocated outside the main urban areas?

I am aware that 27 projects, involving €70 million in funding, were approved. How many of those went into the more rural areas outside Cork, Dublin and Galway? When applications are being assessed, the criteria can be very narrow at times. We need to weight them in favour of rural areas. This is not to say that they would not meet the criteria but if, for example, we have a successful company in Belmullet, we need to ask how we can support it because 20 jobs in Belmullet or Erris can mean the same as 2,000 in Dublin. When the innovation, technology and so on are in place, we need to harness, encourage and support that with resources provided directly to the people who are making a difference in these communities.

I would have the same concerns about centralisation and privatisation of services but centralisation in terms of hospitals and medical services will prevent people moving to and remaining in the more rural areas. Education is connected to that as well, even in terms of school transport. People may relocate to particular areas and set up their businesses only to discover that there are no places on the school bus for their children. All of these matters are connected.

On the curriculum, how do our guests believe they have changed the curriculum in primary or secondary schools in terms of matching the skill sets with existing and future jobs, particularly in the context of technology? Are the software and hardware available? Has the curriculum been changed? I have always found that the curriculum is slow to be changed. Has it changed in terms of languages? How many schools are teaching Mandarin? I refer to some of the markets that were opened up heretofore. Are schools still teaching the languages we did 20 years ago? I have put many questions but I have to be in the Seanad for the Order of Business so I will not be asking any more.

I thank the Senator. I will call Deputy Ó Cuív once our guests have taken the opportunity to address some of the questions. I do not believe they are in a position to provide answers to many of the questions the Senator asked, which ranged from seaweed to school transport and beyond, but they might do their best to address some of them. I call Ms Dwyer.

Ms Rowena Dwyer

I thank the Senator for the questions. I will address some of the points raised and some others not so specifically. The key point she made relating to enabling infrastructure in terms of broadband and so on is critically important. Everyone here recognises that. One of Enterprise Ireland's roles is to sit on the National Competitiveness Council. It is our role to identify and to hear from our clients the issues that are outside our direct mandate and control but that are impacting on their ability to develop and so on. We influence and impact through that, and these are the type of issues that are very pertinent to our clients and to enterprises across the country.

On the disruptive technologies innovation fund, I do not have the exact breakdown but it is important to know that the criteria for that fund specifically required collaboration that included SMEs. It is a criteria that can and will be mirrored in other collaborative funding programmes into the future. That is critically important that what we see between large and small companies is the ability to maximise spillovers and allow SMEs to compete and be able to achieve growth in this area.

Regarding other areas, to go back to what was mentioned earlier about the skills needs and so on of enterprises, it is critically important that SMEs are supported, which is what we are doing through the Spotlight on Skills programme in identifying their skills needs and, following that, assisting them to engage and have a voice with education providers. When the Senator talks about curriculum it is that our education providers know the needs of our SMEs, not just those of larger companies, and that education providers in regional locations are responding to skills needs in that area in particular sectoral clusters.

I thank Ms Dwyer. I call Ms Martin.

Ms Orla Martin

I will add a comment on the role of the broadband officers. There are 31 broadband officers across the local authority network and they are playing a significant role between the providers and the funders. They are identifying the different black spots both for broadband and mobile phone coverage. They are involved in many different pilots and funding applications. They are developing regional and local digital plans also. They are accessing funding independently and feeding in to the national picture. They are doing a good deal in that area. For example, they are working with LEADER-funded community hubs as well as Enterprise Ireland and different agencies and providers around the region. We work very closely with LEADER.

In terms of curriculum, from our point of view, the LEOs are heavily involved in the delivery of entrepreneurship programmes through the student enterprise programme. It is the largest programme throughout the country in terms of involvement with students. It is something we would like added to the curriculum. We are in discussions with the Department of Education and Skills on that.

To refer to the questions and comments on collaboration, it must be remembered that a number of the newly launched regional enterprise plans contain strategic objectives and supporting actions regarding remote working. The groups working on the regional action plans are completely collaborative across all areas and stakeholders, including enterprise, all the agencies and related bodies. That is very useful. Even in Offaly, in terms of being part of the midlands one, there are different initiatives to improve the remote working connectivity between the hubs and also to look at a campaign to approach companies in Dublin to encourage remote working and to determine the interest in coming back and setting up in the midlands. What might be useful in terms of overall co-ordination is the sharing of information on best practice among the different plans across the country.

The promotion of remote working to the larger employers would be very useful. We sent details on that. In the LEO in Offaly we are organising a half-day conference during enterprise week on practical insights and guides for both employers and employees. There is definitely a growing momentum for remote and smart working but it would be great to have additional education and learning around it.

Does Deputy Ó Cuív want to come in at this stage?

Yes. Our guests are very welcome. I managed to listen to some of the presentations when I was in my office. The hubs are the key practical action that can be taken. That needs to be done now because in five years time we may not have half the demand for them. I had hoped we would have ubiquitous fibre broadband connected to every building in this country. I have to put my cards on the table and say I will not rest easy until we have put fibre broadband into every building in this country. If we were able to put in electricity, water and all those basic services, fibre broadband should be seen the same way. I do not believe that fibre technology will date. There will be better wireless technologies but they will never match fibre technology in fixed locations. It is a tiny bit of a cable that provides the necessary in terms of television, business and so on.

My understanding of the co-working hubs is that they currently have two functions. First, they provide broadband connection where none is available. For example, where I live, 100 houses have a fibre broadband connection and 300 houses are without broadband. Approximately 20 of us have a 60 Mbps or 70 Mbps service and the rest are on 5 Mbps or nothing. The people who are outside that have a big problem. I live in a very rural area with 100 houses. If a business is directly linked, it will not use a hub. It will use it in situ.

However, even if the national broadband plan contract is awarded next month, I would imagine that it would be three, four or five years before it is rolled out fully. Eir has not stuck to its targets regarding the roll-out of the previous one. It will be well into the middle of the year before the 300,000 houses are connected. We are now getting into more difficult terrain involving a further 500,000 houses. One can figure out the timescale. The first need is what I have outlined.

There is a socialisation issue regarding the second need. In other words, some people could work from home but they like to be able to go into work and interact with others. What I imagine will happen is that if everybody had fibre broadband in the home - and every Deputy works from wherever he or she is located at any given moment - most people will not just work neat eight-hour days. I imagine that they would sometimes go down and work in the hub while much of the time, they will work from home. They will work from places such as airports at other times. We need to look at the matter in that context. Therefore, the need for the hubs will continue but it will change and it might not be for as many hours.

I compliment Údarás an Gaeltachta, which is missing from this particular feast, because it has many buildings around the Gaeltacht, it systematically looks at empty buildings and it puts in gcomms or hot desks. This policy has proven very positive. Listening to our guests from Enterprise Ireland, an issue I can never get my head around is that when IDA Ireland was split up into Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland, all of the buildings in rural Ireland were left in the ownership of the latter. So, from a foreign direct investment perspective, IDA Ireland owns properties in Roundstone in County Galway and all sorts of bizarre places. It seems that there is no co-ordinated approach regarding the full portfolio of IDA Ireland properties. How many buildings are there, how many of them are in full use and how many of them could be translated into gcomms just as Údarás na Gaeltachta has done? My question to the representatives from Enterprise Ireland concerns whether the agency has discussed this matter with IDA Ireland and asked the latter is willing to make its buildings, or parts of them, available. A factory located in the area in which I live includes a self-contained unit that has a few rooms, a place for making tea and toilets. A person can go in the front door and need not interfere with the rest of the factory building that, unfortunately, is empty at the moment but would still be available for letting. If IDA Ireland has factories, most of them have suites of offices that could be used. My simple question concerns whether there has been any joined-up thinking here between Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland. I will extend the question.

One of our witnesses, Ms Tierney from Abodoo, has to go. I thank her for attending.

Ms Vanessa Tierney

I thank the committee for inviting me to appear before it. I apologise for having to leave early. I must meet the CEO of Vodafone so I will bring up many of the issues raised today. More than 20,000 people have registered so it is not just a couple of hundred or 2,000 in Wexford. In excess of 20,000 people and over 500 companies have registered. The demand for smart working is there. Obviously, regarding the 200 co-working, we are engaging with the 31 LEOs so we are slowly bringing it together. I will mention one thing about skills because it is fundamental. With the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning, what will become key for humans involves our soft skills - our cognitive learning and ability to connect. We are building technology in the background to be able to match people because many of us will have multiple career paths. If members have not already seen it, Abodoo and Vodafone carried out a national survey regarding the appetite for smart, or remote, working that is an interesting read.

I thank Ms Tierney and offer her my best wishes.

Does Enterprise Ireland have a policy of setting up these centres or work hubs and, if so, has it discussed the matter with IDA Ireland. On the wider question, has there been any discussion about transferring all of the rural properties that will never be used for classical foreign direct investment to Enterprise Ireland? Most of the successful industries around rural Ireland are actually indigenous, not foreign. Anybody who is big enough to come here is likely to want to be near a city. There is enough talent in this country to create significant employment in rural Ireland. A far more likely market consists of people who might have worked in the foreign direct investment sector in the past or who are just smart and have ideas. There is a lot of employment near where I live that involves very smart local people who got the job done. That is a question.

I am focusing big time on the physical aspect - the national roll-out of broadband and hubs - because my experience is that without any of the soft supports, an endless amount of people are looking for it tomorrow. They were looking for it at the last election as we canvassed the houses one by one because there is a significant cohort of people who work in cities and commute who could reduce their commute to two days per week if they could work from home. They could be at home at mid-term, do all the family-friendly things we want people to do and still keep the work going if they could work from home. This is a significant market for facilitating rural living. It might also solve some urban traffic problems. Driving into Galway on Monday morning was fantastic. I could not believe it. I got there in jig time during rush hour. It was only then that I suddenly realised that it was mid-term, half the parents in the country were off work and all the schools were closed. This is multifaceted but, funnily enough, I do not think we have to do much to educate the people about this. They are saying "Yeah, it's a great idea but I don't have broadband or a facility to access broadband in my village. Will you just give it to us?" We already have an awful lot of businesses and houses in rural Ireland.

Perhaps the rural broadband officer could answer my next question. Have we any idea how many people in areas with broadband now work partially from home? This would allow us to extrapolate how many people in the 600,000 houses that do not have commercial broadband would work from home without any further soft supports because the people already doing it in areas with broadband did so off their own bat. It involves just getting the physical thing there. It is great to have all the supports but we would be encouraging people to use something that does not exist. As I often say, when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, he had no marketing survey but once a good idea took hold, the rest was history. That took a fair while but holding a constituency clinic always fascinated me after somebody invented the mobile phone. When I first came up here, mobile phones were the size of bricks and as scarce as hen's teeth. Once the smaller version came out and they became relatively cheap, everybody was coming in with them. Some of my constituents who would come in would not be technologically savvy. When I asked them for their phone number, they would pull the phone out of their pockets and it would be written on the back of it stuck on with a bit of sellotape but they still used the phone for every purpose for which they wanted it. I find that very few people nowadays come in to see me without a smart phone and they have that because they are using apps. People adopt a technology. They are smart. There is significant interaction involving people in this country. This is small little country. We are a very strange people. The problem we have is the physical availability.

I was thinking about skills. One of the key issues for any work environment is people being able to enhance their skills in their employment environment. Are there challenges in respect of remote working because one will not have 50 people working together?

It comes back to the point that a person may be partially or fully isolated from his or her work colleagues. What means exists to address that?

Second, regarding the issue of hubs, one of the most successful hubs I know is a food hub in Drumshanbo. There is also a technology hub in Manorhamilton. Key to the development of those hubs were individuals who had an idea and ran with it. There is despondency about such development among people in many areas in that people do not have a broadband connection or they do not have this or that support. There are too many elements that people do not have for people to have confidence to be able to run with such an idea. I would like Mr. Christal to tease out what needs to be done to develop the capacity within communities to lift themselves out of all of that.

A number of questions have been raised. I call Mr. Christal to respond.

Mr. Mark Christal

In response to Deputy Ó Cuív's questions and comments, I would make a couple of points. First, as he rightly identified, the responsibility for the property portfolio lies with IDA Ireland. It is mandated to manage it and it is best placed to talk about the full range of properties that are available to support foreign direct investment. However, I stress and reassure the Deputy there is ongoing collaboration between ourselves and IDA Ireland at national level and regional level on this and a number of other initiatives.

In terms of the development of co-working spaces we have supported, as I mentioned and as stated in our submission, €64 million has been invested by ourselves in the community enterprise centres. In addition, with respect to regional accelerators, for example, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, recently launched the enterprise development plan from the PorterShed in Galway, which is a good example of collaboration between ourselves and the IDA Ireland in those sorts of hubs and facilities and also the business innovation centres. We have the remit for the development of high potential start-up companies and we collaborate with IDA Ireland on how we can develop those and to use the facilities that are in place. Another area on which we collaborate with IDA Ireland and on which we are focused is our agenda around second sites, which relate to Enterprise Ireland companies that are establishing and expanding their presence in regional locations as opposed to city or urban locations.

As the Deputy will be aware, we have responsibility for the food direct investment, FDI, agenda. While IDA Ireland has the agenda for the wider sectors, we have responsibility for food FDI and we collaborate very much with IDA Ireland on available properties and the appropriate properties to support that sector.

I call Ms Orla Martin to respond.

Would Mr. Christal consider examining what údarás is doing as, from what he has said, it seems it is light years ahead? It considers all its properties because they are all in one portfolio and it can identify where there is space in properties. We have a latent demand. We are talking all the time about the person who is at the door but there is a latent demand there for g-tech or digital working hubs. We have the buildings. We just need to ensure there are tea making facilities, fibre connected to the properties, toilet facilities in operating order, security in the properties and a key access system to enter them. As I have pointed out since I was elected to the Dáil, there is only one Government in this country but all the agencies seem to operate as if there were 50 governments here. I do not care whether it be Enterprise Ireland or IDA Ireland but would Enterprise Ireland consider examining what údarás is doing and for it and IDA Ireland to take a leaf out of its book and get on with the job?

Mr. Mark Christal

I reassure the Deputy we have worked very closely with údarás as recently as during the past week. We support it in the business enterprise development it leads in the Gaeltacht regions. I met the senior management team in údarás during the past week and we have an ongoing conversation. Anything we can learn from údarás or other agencies we are happy to do.

I suggest Mr. Christal should ask it to show him the g.coms it is supporting.

I call Ms Orla Martin to respond, to be followed by Mr. Ken Tobin.

Ms Orla Martin

Regarding skills, the local enterprise offices are involved with clients in many co-working spaces in assisting them in enterprise training, networking and business development. That is happening and that training opportunity is open to tenants of a co-working hub who may be working there only one day a week and spend the other days working with a business in a larger city. I referenced a new hub we will be establishing, STREAM Create Suite. As it will deal with big data, we are linking in with courses on data analytics provided by Athlone Institute of Technology, Trinity College, some of the Skillnet courses and other groupings, including some in the private sector. That will be a strong aspect of that new hub. Other hubs are doing similar things.

Many of the libraries are working on developing e-platforms. They have many new journals, reports and materials online. I know from talking to the head of library services in Offaly that their usage has increased 70% in the past year. That linked in with the open library systems feeds in very well with the area of remote working.

Regarding the difference between working in a co-working hub and working from home, even if broadband access was available at home, we have clients who tell us that their businesses have specified that they need to be working from a co-working hub and not from a converted room at home. Plenty of people feel they need the discipline of working in a hub and there is also the social aspect. Social interaction and engaging with people from different backgrounds at different levels of business have been very beneficial to people working in hubs.

Mr. Ken Tobin

I want to address a few points. I am familiar with the-----

I asked specifically if there is any data on where there is fibre to the home and the number of people who are fully or partially working from home, or is that one of the hidden secrets of Ireland?

Ms Orla Martin

I am not aware of that but we can revert to the committee on it. I would need to talk to the broadband officers of the network. I am not aware if research has taken place on that or the outcome of any such research. I do not know if anybody else has that information.

All I know is this - while this is not anecdotal it is not a scientific survey - the number of people living just outside broadband enabled areas who have contacted me advising they need broadband access for their businesses and their daily lives is very high. I know many people get mad at me when I am honest enough to admit this, but I am going to say it again, during the last election, the main issue we heard when canvassing at the doors was not that of post offices but that of broadband connectivity. Straight and simple, broadband was the main issue for people, and that was across the board. It was not as age-specific as one might think but it peaked among the 30 to 45 age group, comprising working parents and so on. What we need to find out is that where there is broadband connectivity how many people use it for their business, part time, full time or for whatever number of hours. People could be asked if they use broadband for their business three hours or 20 hours a week, or full time. We need to get that information. I accept the point Ms Martin made about social interaction.

I do not know if the witnesses are in a position to answer that. As a committee, we could write on their behalf to the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment to ascertain the answer to that question.

Perhaps we should write to the broadband officers to see if some county would undertake that work?

We can arrange to do that as well.

It would greatly strengthen the case for rural broadband if we knew the economic effect it is having. The provision would then become a loss leader. There would be much to gain if the demand for it is as prevalent as I believe it is.

The Deputy might forward a note on that to the clerk to the committee. I want to bring in Mr. Ken Tobin.

Mr. Ken Tobin

I want to specifically focus on Deputy Ó Cuív's point regarding údarás and g-tech hubs. I am very familiar with the hubs. However, I would express a note of caution. I am aware of a number of community-led hubs that have been established through various funds which are still lying idle. All investment into these hubs must be demand-led or at least have an avenue with respect to who will fill them. There is no point in making commitments to local communities saying that we will put a hub in their region and provide broadband access but then no one goes to work in it and there is no economic benefit to that town. This is an anecdotal example. I am very aware of hubs that are vacant because either the infrastructure was not right or there was no demand for those hubs or there was not an avenue and a connection with Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland to provide this as a landing pad solution for companies that are interested in those locations.

It is not always about developing hubs. In some cases remote working might be a better home working solution for those rural towns where we can enable people's homes so that they can work from home. I accept the point about the isolation of working from home. I did it for 18 months and it is what drove me to set up our hub. Some 30% of the people in our three hubs are remote workers. Some are there one or two days a week just to make that connection with other people. Some of them would have come from large city offices, for example, where they were surrounded by hundreds of people and are now in their house that is 20 miles outside the nearest large town. I get the point about isolation but urge caution with regard to the development of hubs because it is a waste of investment in those towns if there may be a better solution to provide employment to those towns.

I thank Mr. Tobin. We have been joined by Deputy Rabbitte who is very welcome. I am aware that she is very much involved with a hub in Portumna. The Deputy made a very valuable contribution at the last meeting of this committee. The floor is hers.

I will be short and sweet. I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to ask a few questions. I shall direct one question to the witnesses from Offaly County Council and its local enterprise office, LEO. I have looked at their Facebook and web pages which, as Mr. Tobin has said, is where a lot of business-led hubs would need to have the anchor tenant. Enterprise Ireland might be interested to hear that I held a discovery day some weeks ago in Portumna where we had a number of employees from a particular large financial institution based in Limerick. We learned that this company's employees make up 30 cars going across the bridge every single morning. The company has a capacity issue: it wants to expand but does not have car parking facilities. An ideal location would be the sort of idea that we are referring to, where one can expand from. From there I went into the website to see where the local employment office gets right in behind it. I thought the web page was fantastic and it gave me a good steer around Offaly and what it is about. One of my questions at the last meeting was about the roll-out of the LEOs and the support role they play. Do the LEOs meet bi-monthly or half yearly to share information from one LEO to another? During the earlier contributions I heard that €34 million is available to the LEOs to support businesses and so on, but the sharing of the information is also important so that every county council is on the same platform.

How do we get the idea of the change concept into the schools? Reference was made to the library. The library is absolutely a valuable tool, be it in second or third level education, when one needs to finish a project. It is possibly not for the high end aspect of attracting business. I do not agree with libraries in that context, but they are definitely valuable to the second and third level students who want to complete their projects. Is there a plan with LEO or Enterprise Ireland to deliver that model and to educate children to use different units that are available, as opposed to them spending their weekends in Galway, for example, because they cannot get broadband in Ballinakill? If, however, one was to go down the road to Abbey or Killimor there is a library available. Would the witnesses agree that we need to train children how to plan their study patterns a little differently?

How will the representatives from Enterprise Ireland engage with the banks and businesses that have capacity issues around accommodation for their businesses and employees? They sometimes cannot get the accommodation because premiums for space are so high. Are the representatives looking to the wider sphere such as the one hour commute? The Portumna region, for example, is one hour from Galway, one hour from Limerick and one hour from Athlone. The Chairman's area is no different. We need to look at these commuter towns. When I speak about buildings I mean those places such as the Dowager House in Portumna - which is owned by the Office of Public Works, OPW and is completely kittled out. As opposed to having the businesses buying why are we not re-using the properties that are available? What engagements do the witnesses have with other Departments and agencies - such as the OPW - that have very good buildings that are not being used? These premises may have car-parking spaces and other facilities, and their use could keep towns alive.

Thank you Deputy Rabbitte. Would Ms Martin like to address that?

Ms Orla Martin

I thank Deputy Rabbitte for her kind comments about the Facebook page and the website. The heads of the local enterprise offices meet about six or eight times a year. Other teams within the local enterprise offices meet a number of times a year also. It is all about information sharing, the sharing of best practice, looking to see what works in some regions and what might be replicated. We also meet on a regional basis to drive actions through the regional enterprise plans and so on. That is happening.

With regard to the libraries, we find that people use the Work Matters library programmes where libraries have put in a lot of supports for people who are setting up their own businesses. They aid in patent searches and searches on Vision-Net. We link in with these businesses at what we term "pre start-up". We have also run schemes where students are working on student enterprise projects. The LEO has offered opportunities for the students to meet with some of the design experts in some of the co-working spaces who have given some of their time pro bono to help the students on projects. We have facilitated student groups working for European youth entrepreneurship competitions, one such being through The Junction Business Innovation Centre. This sort of initiative is being replicated with other LEOs throughout the State.

I invite the chief executive of Offaly County Council. I apologise for not giving her title when I made the introductions earlier.

Ms Anna Marie Delaney

That is okay Chairman.

My grandmother was from Offaly.

Ms Anna Marie Delaney

I am a Laois woman, but I thank the Chairman. I will add to what Ms Martin has said around the links to education, the schools and the structures the council has in that regard. Through the Comhairle na nÓg system the council has a significant amount of projects and initiatives, a number of which are around entrepreneurship. The Offaly Comhairle na nÓg has done a significant programme on entrepreneurship. It links into the student schemes. They have entered into national competitions and have performed well. Our broadband officer - who also works with our IT department - made a successful application under the digital innovation fund for a robotics project with primary schools. That innovative programme is kicking off currently with the first few schools in last week. This is a new area where we are looking at new technologies and linking into the fabric of the county with the scientific aspect such as with the I-LOFAR radio telescope project in Birr and the STREAM Creative Suite. We are also developing around new technologies and we have plans with regard to the funding streams available under the digital innovation fund.

On students utilising the libraries' service and new forms of study patterns and mechanisms, the open library system was piloted in Offaly and has now been rolled out around the State. It has been very successful in utilising off-peak times for students. It allows them access to Internet provision and provides resources for them. A number of initiatives are held in libraries with the primary and second level schools at weekends and in the evenings for students around developing health mental skills such as Healthy Ireland and the Lego programme, among others, to try to encourage children to utilise the available services and resources for education and research.

Mr. Mark Christal

I have some comments on the points raised by Deputy Rabbitte. With regard to the co-ordination of the LEOs, significant effort goes into ensuring shared learning across the local enterprise offices. Enterprise Ireland has a dedicated team based in our Shannon office, which we call the LEO centre of excellence. The team's job is to work with Ms Martin and the respective LEO managers, and to bring the 31 LEO heads together, to share information and best practice. We are very much supported by the local authorities in that agenda. We also have a national steering group, of which Ms Delaney and I are members. This group shares ideas and best practice at a policy level.

On the issue of property, and hopefully I will not repeat some of the points I raised earlier, we work with IDA Ireland to collaborate as best we can around property needs. The development of second sites is a key objective for Enterprise Ireland. Second sites is when Enterprise Ireland companies are growing or expanding and we work with them to identify sites. If they are based in Dublin or Cork, for example, we see if they would consider expanding their business into a rural location as opposed to expanding in their current location.

We have some really good examples of that including Abtran last year, as well as Carne. They are really good companies which have developed second sites in regional locations and brought a lot to those regions. The regional enterprise development fund, REDF, covers the 42 projects we funded. Many of those projects were to develop existing facilities. It did not focus on new builds or new entities. It was to see what exists in rural locations and what we can do through the fund and the partners involved in those projects to develop those facilities in those locations.

Is that a rolling fund, can someone apply at any stage or is there a window for application? How does that work?

Mr. Mark Christal

No it is not a rolling fund. There were two calls, the first of which closed in 2017, while the second call closed last year. Those funds are finished and closed.

Is there no new one currently available?

Mr. Mark Christal

The Minister has said consideration of what a third fund might look like is under way. There are the rural and urban funds, which are important and there is the disruptive technologies fund, all of which have been mentioned. The REDF is a specific fund and the third call has not yet been rolled out.

When I asked that specific question, I was asking more about the service industries and entities such as banks that are hitting capacity and that wish to expand. There is a budget of over €100 million to maintain some of the Office of Public Works, OPW, sites. Garda stations have been closed down. Huge sums of money have been invested in various houses down through the years and they are of a high standard in central locations. Is Enterprise Ireland liaising with the Minister to access some of these buildings, which would need very little investment to bring them into use?

Mr. Mark Christal

Perhaps that is something that needs to be considered. It is something we need to reflect on. What drives our engagement on property and property development is the needs of our companies, the ones which are expanding and growing. That is the key driver. Where those properties come from or what they look like is influenced by the needs of the company in its sector. We could consider and reflect on that.

Very briefly, I often notice that in the discourse now we talk about Dublin, rural towns and cities and we forget that 1.5 million people, one third of our population, live outside the towns or villages. A city with a third of the population in it would be a hell of a city. There is one, Dublin. We keep noticing that. Rural Ireland is predominantly outside the towns and villages. No matter how long, and how often, and how strong the feeling in the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, and planning and planning and planning is, Irish people are very attached to their non-nucleated villages. I live in one of those places that is highly enterprising. We get literature telling us we think better when we are in the city but I do not find I think any better up here than I do down below. I did not find that when I migrated to the west I became less creative. I actually became a lot more creative because necessity does that. I do not find my local population any less creative and I defy anybody to say, given the suite of lack of infrastructure over the years, that they have not been incredibly creative in overcoming that. We do not seem to understand that there is an Ireland out there that has been written out of the geography and most people expect that Ireland to travel. What this does is allow that Ireland to stay at home and work from where it is. It is a pity that all the documents we get seem to talk about towns as if that third did not exist. We do exist.

I keep pointing to one interesting thing. I know Killarney eventually got the better of Mullinalaghta but it was David and Goliath. Pound for pound, however, they put up a hell of a battle for a population of 400 against the whole town of Killarney and its hinterland, as they call it. St. Thomas's is still in the shake. I think it is up against Ballyhale Shamrocks.

We will sort them, not to worry.

We are not exactly downtown Manhattan either. The other interesting point is that the final finalist is Corofin and there is not a town in sight. Corofin is a tiny village. I would say there would not be two players who come from the village.

This committee is a rural one. Towns are part of rural Ireland but they are not rural Ireland. We have to keep remembering that. It is tiny. There is not any geographic problem in servicing all of rural Ireland. They had a dream in Australia that was a little bit ambitious of putting fibre into every house there but in some places in the outback it might be necessary to go 10, 20 or 30 miles to find a house. I know of nowhere in Ireland that is impossible to service with water or electricity. We have done it for the electricity. One thing that does disturb me is that the State seems to have just grasped that fibre is like electricity. It is just a case of sticking in and doing it without having to depend on private people or ingenious LEADER companies or whatever to create a basic resource. Thanks be to God we did not do that with electricity. Early in our history we decided that every house was to get electricity and to just do it, get it done, and that was it. That is my view on this whole fibre thing, just get it done.

I believe we have had a very productive meeting here today. I thank the witnesses from Enterprise Ireland, the Offaly LEO and the chief executive of Offaly County Council, Ken Tobin from HQ Tralee, and Abodoo, which is a very progressive private company.

The committee is putting together a report on remote working and smart working. There is a lot of work being done in this area. There is a massive movement towards remote working using co-working places. I compliment Offaly County Council and wish it well with its conference on 8 March. I thank it for communicating with our committee and for taking this opportunity to come here today and for presenting so well.

There is a need for co-ordination and collaboration as Deputy Martin Kenny has mentioned, and bringing everyone together on the one hymn sheet. There are many different ways to draw down funding. Mr. Tobin referred to the town and village renewal or the fund that was there in Enterprise Ireland, the rural regeneration programme. There seems to be a need for a more co-ordinated approach, possibly that is what Senator Coffey said about a national plan for remote working. That should involve different stakeholders such as a private company. Grow Remote was fantastic when it was here, for the voluntary work it does encouraging communities to set up chapters. I attended one in Clarecastle. There is a meeting tomorrow night in Ennis and I compliment everyone involved there. From that people can grow and develop a shared working space and address the issues Deputy Ó Cuív has raised about congestion in Dublin, the need to rebalance our country and get away from commuting and congestion, and the stagnation in Dublin where there is a housing crisis, to areas where there is not such a demand.

Our researcher is here today and she has taken note. We hope to be in a position to present a report. We will be in touch with the witnesses and they should feel free to stay in touch with the committee. I again thank them for attending.

The joint committee suspended at 12.20 p.m., resumed in private session at 12.26 p.m.and adjourned at 12.50 p.m. until 9 a.m. on Wednesday, 6 March 2019.
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