Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 17 December 2025
457. Deputy John Paul O'Shea asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht if he will provide an update on the commitment in Our Rural Future to pilot co-working and hot desking hubs for civil servants in a number of regional locations; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [73095/25]
View answerOur Rural Future, the whole-of-government policy for sustainable rural development in Ireland, seeks to ensure that rural areas are attractive places for people to live, work and raise a family. In line with this, one of the policy priorities is to improve access to remote working for people in rural areas.
The policy contains a number of commitments to support this ambition, including Measure 11: ‘Pilot co-working or hot-desking for civil servants in a small number of towns initially, to support the objective of a move to 20% home or remote working. Delivery of Measure 11 falls under the remit of the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, who hold policy responsibility for civil service working practices, and in March 2022 published the Blended Working Policy Framework for Civil Service Organisations.
Our Rural Future Progress Reports are published on my Department’s website at: www.gov.ie/en/department-of-rural-and-community-development-and-the-gaeltacht/collections/our-rural-future-annual-work-programmes-and-progress-reports/
The latest, Seventh Progress Report, includes an update from the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation indicating that “the objective of Measure 11 to achieve 20% blended working across the Civil Service has been achieved and as of October 2024 there were 24,404 registered Civil Service blended working applications active". I can confirm my own department, which itself covers four regional locations, has a blended working policy in place that provides staff with flexibility for a mixture of office-based and remote work that means we are also exceeding the original 20% target.
Looking ahead, the Programme for Government includes a commitment to publish and implement a new Our Rural Future policy from 2026, and engagement with departments is well underway with respect to ambitious commitments for delivery under the new plan as we continue our whole-of-Government approach to this next phase of Ireland’s rural development policy.
