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Tax breaks for working from home to be examined under new plan to incentivise people to move to rural Ireland

Monday, 29 March 2021 06:52

The 'Our Rural Future' plan also commits to a fund to re-purpose vacant buildings in rural towns to turn them into shared office spaces with access to high speed broadband. 

The government is understood to be examining further financial incentives such as relocation grants to get people out of cities. 

Pilot schemes are set to be launched to provide state-backed taxis or hackneys in rural communities that can't support public transport networks on their own. 

A separate scheme will aim to turn some rural pubs into community areas providing other services in a bid to keep them open. 

Minister for Rural Development Heather Humphreys says there's a huge opportunity to change how people work:

"Young people were educated from rural Ireland, they went to Dublin and they had to stay in Dublin, because that was the only option they had to get to get the jobs that they wanted. So now we have, we've an opportunity, a once in a lifetime opportunity to change that. So that means that they can come and do these jobs in rural Ireland because of the working hubs; technology's changing our lives. This is our chance to embrace it and maximise the benefits that it will bring."

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