Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank ERNACT for its presentation. One slide shows a 75% of value added by the Internet to the traditional sectors. Has ERNACT done any research work in the north-west gateway in terms of the potential for SMEs to grow job creation and so on from that? The Western Development Commission had a very interesting report a few years ago in which it estimated that there could be 18,000 to 20,000 jobs created in the north-west region by assisting SMEs in the traditional creative industries to access Internet and broaden their Internet presence. It is interesting to see that the value added is in the traditional sectors which is where the potential for job creation in the north west would be. Has Mr. McColgan done any research on SMEs in Donegal and Derry?

On the ESB Airtricity announcement yesterday, Letterkenny is one of the towns that will be targeted as part of that initiative. What are the linkages for people into Project Kelvin and are there cross linkages between all the different providers in the north west? Are there problems with that and what is evolving?

The project in Sweden which was highlighted in the presentation is very interesting. Some 80% of fibre networks are owned by the public sector, which as Mr. McColgan pointed out is the exact opposite of what we have here. Obviously, the market has failed in terms of delivering broadband to communities across the country. We need to reshape public policy in terms of the roll-out of broadband and see it as a public infrastructure that is vitally important for the public good. Has Mr. McColgan any details on costs? How much would it cost to roll-out a project like the Swedish project?

Finally, in relation to the pilot project, while I think it has some merit, what we should be doing and focusing on is the ESB wrapping fibre and bringing it on a broad scale to every house in the country, which has now been enabled. The outworking of the ESB-Vodafone partnership is part of that. We should be focusing on ramping it up and speeding it up and ensuring that it is developed and rolled out across the country. By 2018 broadband will have been delivered to these 50 towns, which means by the time one gets down to rural Donegal one is looking at 2030 to 2035. A parallel focus for organisations such as ERNACT is to lobby for the policy change and the policy commitment that would be required to ensure that happens on a broad national scale. Perhaps it could even look at the North. Does the ESB own the network in the North and is it something that could be rolled out on an all island basis, which would have more significant and quicker impacts as well?