Not a remote chance work will go back to being how it was before

‘New normal’ provides fresh opportunities to solve old problems and reshape how we live, writes

THE ‘new normal’ is a phrase we’ll soon grow sick of, but what will it mean? It could be the end of pubs as we know them and hot-desking office spaces. It could be the start of wearing masks on public transport, using hand sanitisers as you walk into shops, and an increase in online shopping.

One of the biggest changes has been a move to remote working. Many have had to adapt quickly to what always seemed to be the next big thing, but had never really taken off. Now that it has been forced on recalcitrant employers and uncertain workers, it is unlikely that work will go back to what it was.

This will present challenges for people. Living in small city centre flats will be even less attractive if your commute to work is a one metre step from your bed to your desk. That might lead to a demand for bigger homes, with space for offices and balconies. The old solutions to the housing crisis — building smaller, more affordable units, such as co-living — might create new problems.

But the move to the

‘new normal’ also provides opportunities to solve old problems. Since Sean Lemass came to office in 1959 there have been concerns over the decline in small Irish towns and villages. Journalist John Healy described the decline of rural Ireland in his book on Charlestown, Co Mayo,

No One Shouted Stop, in 1968.

Even as the Irish economy boomed, small towns in Ireland complained that they could no longer field a full Gaelic team, and when that turned to bust after 2008, things got worse. The last few Daileanna has seen the rise in rural independents, but they have failed to halt the decline — the closure of garda stations, post offices, shops, pubs and schools, and the exodus to cities and abroad.

Solutions offered by rural TDs usually focus on connectivity: improve the roads and deliver rural broadband. In the postCovid-19 world these will continue to be important, but they won’t be enough, and if done badly could wreck those towns.

Remote working will provide an opportunity to reinvigorate small towns and villages in ways that rural development campaigners could only dream of. Now that remote working has become normal, it will stay normal.

A lot of people will prefer to move to rural towns and villages where they will be able to afford bigger homes, than if they stay in or near Dublin. Dublin’s high rents, poor public transport, expensive bars, cafes and restaurants will make living in rural Ireland more attractive, and now possible. If people are expected to come to their office just once or twice a month, even long journeys to work will be manageable.

But this won’t happen by itself. Or if it does happen by itself, it could end up creating new problems for rural Ireland. Many of the rural TDs most vocal on the issue have been insistent in the right of people to build anything anywhere on their own land. This as much as anything has damaged rural towns which are dead after 6pm as people retreat to their homes ‘out the road’.

The ribbon development along roads blights the landscape, erasing the distinction between town and country, making it harder for pubs to survive and more expensive for other services, such as bin collection to be sustained.

The Government and other rural towns can learn from places like Dingle and Westport, which have thrived despite their relative isolation. Dingle could hardly be more remote, yet it is full of life, and probably a place in which many more people would choose to live. The advantage these towns have is that people live within them.

Dingle is probably helped by its geography, couched between high mountains and the sea, forcing most development to stay inside the town. Westport took a deliberate decision to keep people living in the town, and to push cars out of the town centre.

So rural towns should be forced to only allow development within the towns, keeping people within the towns. The Government could encourage this with its rural broadband programme. At the moment it is promising to deliver broadband to everyone’s doorstep regardless of where you live. This is adding greatly to its cost.

In other countries rural broadband programmes bring the cables to boxes in the town, and the subscriber pays a small amount to get it to their door. This will encourage more people to stay in the rural towns, and avoid the retreat to the countryside that kills many towns.

Remote working is often assumed to mean home working. But it need not be. Most people want to put space between our office and our home. We have discovered that it’s hard to work when kids are screaming in the background. We also miss the social aspect of work, having coffee with colleagues.

The Government could help towns develop work hubs with all the services you’d expect in your office, high-speed broadband, printing facilities, maybe some shared meeting rooms, and other people that you can meet and chat with.

Other services should be designed to make it easier for people living in rural Ireland. It may not matter if the cancer service is 100km away if routine consultations can be done online and local primary health centres can do some of the tasks like administering blood tests.

A push to remote working will help those who cannot work remotely. Teachers, nurses, shop assistants, cleaners, gardai who have to turn up for work might find that their rents are cheaper, as many of the office blocks might be converted for housing. They could find their commutes are more pleasant and less trafficchoked.

It just needs someone to shout ‘start’.