Located on the outskirts of Dunmanway, Co Cork, the Brookpark Business Centre, which opened in 2018, has seen changes to the way in which people are using the remote working hub compared to what happened during the height of Covid when it was an indispensable lifeline for many.
“Since the worst of Covid passed, people have begun to change the way they use the facilities,” said manager Peter Walsh. “Whereas before people may have been in here five days a week, now it might be two or three days a week. We aren’t as full as we were. There is certainly work to do in promoting what we have and telling people about it.”
Mr Walsh, who is also a director of Digital Business Ireland, a representative group aimed at promoting digital business across Ireland, believes the Government’s voucher is a welcome move but he believes more needs to be done if remote working hubs are to become a sustainable long-term feature of the Irish economy.
“Take the VAT rate that people pay when they rent a hot desk, that’s currently 23 per cent and it’s non-refundable; it’s effectively a tax on work and that’s not right, in my opinion. It should at least be brought down to the 9 per cent level paid in the hospitality sector,” said Mr Walsh.
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Equally, increasing fuel and insurance costs are making it more difficult for smaller, more rural hubs to survive and their existing reliance on mostly voluntary managers and committees is not sustainable indefinitely, Mr Walsh said.
Remote working is nothing new in West Cork since it became home to one of the early pioneers, the Ludgate Hub in Skibbereen in 2016, where seven in every 10 places are occupied, according to its chief executive Grainne O’Keeffe.
“During the height of the pandemic, obviously, we were very restricted as everyone else was, but we have seen occupancy climbing back up steadily since then. Before the pandemic we were an essential service for a lot of people but I think now with broadband improving in a lot of areas we are seen more as an optional service,” she said.
With fewer than 3,000 people in Skibbereen, Ludgate has drawn people in from elsewhere, including Schull, Baltimore and Union Hall: “[They] are a real cross-section from self-employed people to those working for corporates,” she said. “Around 30 per cent of people here now would be in the creative sector.”
Holidaymakers are common, too: “We get people from Dublin and the UK very often who might decide to extend their stay and need to do a bit of work, and we’ve also seen a big growth in film and TV production in the area more recently,” Ms O’Keeffe said.
So far Ludgate is credited with enabling 350 direct and indirect jobs, since it is now home to Enterprise Ireland-funded training programmes for start-ups, entrepreneurs, women and the elderly: “We are no longer just a physical space with 1GB connectivity,” she said.
“These kinds of programmes have not been readily available in rural towns up to now,” she said, “The hubs can’t just be a physical space, they need to be able to offer a nurturing, educating and enabling environment through such programmes and we will need Government funding for this.”