Press release
Our Rural Future: Minister Humphreys launches national ‘Connected Hubs Showcase Day’
From Department of Rural and Community Development
Published on
Last updated on
From Department of Rural and Community Development
Published on
Last updated on
Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys, has today officially launched the national ‘Connected Hubs Showcase Day’ at the Creative Spark Downtown Hub in Dundalk, County Louth.
Over 50 Connected Hubs are hosting events around the country displaying the regional diversity of the digital hub network. Events take a variety of formats including co-working crawls, speaker events and coffee mornings.
Taking place as part of the government’s national campaign to promoting remote working, the national Showcase Day will encourage more employers, small businesses and start-ups to consider the wide range of remote working options available nationally.
The event at Creative Spark in Dundalk focussed on town regeneration and heard directly from hub users who gave their experience of returning to their local community as a result of the opportunities presented by remote working.
Speaking at the launch of the Connected Hubs Showcase Day in Dundalk the Minister said:
“Today’s initiative is all about showcasing the fantastic remote facilities that are open for business in every single county in Ireland.
“It’s about promoting the many opportunities and benefits that remote working is providing to tens of thousands of people.
“I believe that by giving people that choice to work from within their own communities, we can revitalise the centres of our towns and villages.
“We can reduce commuting times, lower transport emissions and, most importantly, improve the quality of life of our people.”
Connected Hubs is a flagship initiative led by the Department of Rural and Community Development and implemented by the Western Development Commission. The initiative will connect and deepen the remote working infrastructure across rural Ireland.
The network now has 315 hubs across the country registered on its online platform.
Our Rural Future is the whole-of-government policy for rural Ireland for the period 2021-2025. It represents a new milestone in the approach to rural development policy for Ireland and adopts a more strategic, ambitious and holistic approach to investing in and maximising opportunities for rural areas.
Connected Hubs Showcase Day will enable individual hubs to strengthen their stakeholder relationships and collaborate to attract investment, remote workers, home buyers, shoppers and visitors to their locality.
The Connected Hubs initiative aims to create a shared platform and brand and to raise awareness of hubs and the services they offer. They also highlight the opportunities to relocate to, or establish a business from anywhere in Ireland, as well as developing and raising awareness of hubs as convenient and professional distributed workplaces.