Mr. Conor Murphy:

I thank Mr. McColgan for this very interesting presentation. I am very familiar with the issues raised in the area I live in and represent in South Armagh. We have problems with connections for farms in particular because much of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development form filling exercises are now done online and many farmers have difficulty accessing proper broadband. I was dealing with a case last week on the old Belfast to Dublin road, and one would think there would be strong connections on the main route in the island but there are difficulties for small businesses that need high speed connection. In the North, both the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, DETI and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, DARD, have given money to try to give these companies the finance to provide broadband and hit the spots where there is poor connectivity. This has been going on for a number of years but in my experience it has had a limited impact. Is Mr. McColgan sensing a different approach when he has conversations with DARD and DETI or is it more of the same? Essentially, organisations such as BT have been given assistance to try to provide a service. Some people have got it but it is a slow and patchy process. We still find there are large parts - I presume if it is happening on my patch of the Border area that it is happening right round the Border area - which have not been hit at all. The more rural and the more isolated the area, the less likely people are to get a service because it is not economically viable for them to try to make an attempt to connect the person, even though they are getting public funding for that express purpose. It seems that a pilot scheme that takes a different perspective would offer a solution because what has been tried in the past number of years does not seem to have had the impact that people expected. In the process of discussions with the Departments in Northern Ireland, whatever about in the South, does Mr. McColgan have a sense that they are taking a different approach?