The allocation this week of over €67,000 for the Thurles Chamber Enterprise Centre will be used to improve the offering on the L.I.T campus in the town.
It was one of six Tipperary projects included in funding under the government’s Rural Future Plan which aims to encourage people to move from the cities to rural Ireland.
Chairman of the board of directors of the Thurles Chamber Enterprise Centre Seamus Hanafin outlined what the money will be used for.
“It will allow upgrade of access points for remote working spaces, better connectivity & video conferencing and connecting with other hubs.”
Seamus Hanafin says the funding is a vote of confidence in the centre is a joint venture between Limerick Institute of Technology and Thurles Chamber of Commerce.
He says it’s proven extremely successful over the last decade with almost full occupancy at the moment.
“In terms of helping businesses that have started and grown from there but also in second siting which is becoming more and more important where businesses may be based in Limerick or other places are siting some of their workers in Thurles because it allows people to work closer to home.”
“We also have some individual work spaces where we can take single people who want to work remotely from their offices or to have their own work space or work station.”
“There’s about 50 people employed in the building and all of those businesses feed off each other, help each other and work with each other.”