Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

By the beginning of September, every single post-primary school in the country will have 100 Mbps broadband, an industrial or high-quality level of broadband service, supplied to it. It came about because of collaboration between our Department and the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. The Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources predominantly supported the capital costs and the Department of Education and Skills will support the ongoing revenue costs associated with providing the service. Subhead A.14 shows an increase of €2.3 million for this year to cover the revenue costs associated with sustaining the service into the schools.

We need to explore whether we can do something similar in our primary school network across the country. Our experience in the post-primary sector is that providing that level of broadband support leads to innovative methodologies being used to enhance and augment the learning experience for children across the post-primary sector and in the primary sector. Some areas do not have a successful broadband service. It has not arisen because of an issue within the Department. It is a national issue that must be resolved on a national basis. Primary schools with a poor or non-existent broadband service reflect the area or the community in which they are located. In such cases, the community does not have a very strong broadband service. The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Pat Rabbitte, has ambitions to ensure that by the end of 2016 there will be a minimum of 30 Mbps into every community in the country. That is something I applaud and am very supportive of. After providing such broadband infrastructure across all of Ireland, including rural Ireland, we can look at connecting our schools to the network.

Before Christmas, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, and the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Rabbitte, launched the digital schools of distinction programme, developed in collaboration with HP and Microsoft. It is not unlike the green flag programme and it involves encouraging best practice in the use of technology across our primary school system. In the short 11 weeks the programme has been up and running, 650 primary schools have registered and want to be recognised and affirmed as digital schools of distinction, using technology in an innovative way in the learning process. The 650 schools will be validated and accredited over the coming years.