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

-----I might skip the formal statement, because the launch of the ESB-Vodafone joint venture is proceeding this morning. The purpose of the work that preceded the national broadband plan and the publication of the plan itself was to enhance commercial investment in the provision of broadband. Where the commercial sector will not invest or cannot invest adequately, the State must intervene. Given the recessionary times we have come through, I am very pleased the commercial sector has exceeded commitments entered into at that time. As a result, the footprint of areas in which the State must intervene has shrunk. The new ESB-Vodafone joint commercial venture company will further shrink that footprint by rolling out fibre-optic broadband to some 50 towns in the first phase and between 450 and 500 premises using the ESB supply infrastructure.

The commercial sector has performed very well. For example, Eircom is now committing in its programme to pass 1.4 million premises. There are 2.2 million homes in the country. In respect of the investment engaged in by the likes of Eircom and UPC, their minimum and maximum speeds have greatly increased since the commitment was entered into. They are covering some 700,000 premises. The investment from the commercial sector is of the order of €2 billion. There has been an acceleration in recent years, which is responding to the acceleration in demand in terms of new applications, some of which were not even thought about as recently as a few years ago.

The gap between the provision in urban Ireland and the very basic broadband in parts of rural Ireland must be addressed. We have concluded that it can only be dealt with by Government intervention. We have rethought, tweaked and responded to what has happened in the market in the past couple of years. We have decided that we ought to go for the Rolls Royce solution, which is a fibre-optic network, because it is future-proofed, reliable and resilient. It is the future. People talk about the plan being expressed at publication in terms of minimum speeds and so on, but that is out of fashion. Nobody comes into this meeting and asks what wattage of electricity is being used in this room. People unthinkingly plug in their computers, turn on the lights or plug in their phones; they do not say "I wonder will there be enough electricity?". We must bring the broadband argument to that level.

That is what fibre does, as distinct from the existing situation.