Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The short answer to the first question is that the discussion will be helpful in what we are seeking to do here. We would like to think that many of the measures we highlighted in the broadband task force presaged much of the debate happening now in Europe. We brought together the main players in the industry with Department officials, chaired by me, with the regulator and representatives of Forfás also present. We highlighted a number of measures and it was the first time the industry chief stated that we had this kind of sustained engagement about Ireland's needs regarding quality connectivity. A number of the issues highlighted, such as the better leveraging of State assets to facilitate the roll-out of broadband, constitute exactly the kind of approach being used in this debate in Europe.

The Deputy is right in his second question as we must comply with state aid rules. The broadband plan acknowledges that the commercial sector is not going to be able to provide the kind of quality connectivity that rural Ireland is entitled to and the State must intervene but that can only happen once it complies with state aid and competition rules, etc. As I told the committee before, that involves a very detailed and painstaking mapping exercise now well under way for presentation to Europe. We have had an enthusiastic response because of a decision to roll out fibre, notwithstanding the additional investment that will inevitably be involved. European Commission people see that as a solution that is future-proofed, and solutions we thought of before pale in comparison. We have no way around this and we must go through the state aids process, etc. We are well on the way in preparing for that.

The issues are remarkably similar, especially for countries where large geographic tracts of the country have low density population. It is all right if a person operates in an entirely urban society but where there is low-density population throughout large tracts of a country like Ireland, others encounter the same problems as us.