In my time as Minister, significant progress has been made in the development of the first National Hub Strategy in collaboration with the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment. This includes extensive engagement with relevant stakeholders such as hub managers, local authorities, government departments and agencies, including Enterprise Ireland and the IDA. The enterprise agencies play a key role in guiding the development of the strategy as members of the National Hub Network Interdepartmental Working Group and the Strategy Working Group.
The strategy is built on three pillars of digital communities, hub working and enterprise development. The hub working pillar will focus on the continued strategic development of the Connected Hubs network over the coming years. The Enterprise development pillar will focus on government funded enterprise hubs. These hubs, supported by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment through Enterprise Ireland, deliver capability and capacity building for entrepreneurs, start-ups, scaling companies and SMEs in addition to providing physical work spaces. Enterprise hubs play a vital role in supporting the enterprise ecosystem in urban centres and in rural locations and are supporting balanced, regional and rural development.
Finally, the digital communities pillar addresses the role the Broadband Connection Points initiative will play in the sustainability of communities using high speed broadband to access digital services locally.The strategy, which I intend to publish shortly, will present a coherent approach to the future development of enterprise and remote working hubs and will aim to position hubs as part of employers' policies to attract and retain skilled workers in rural locations supporting balanced regional economic development.
