Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the industry representatives and the individual companies involved and I wish to recognise that the companies are competitors as well in providing this service. As part of the presentation, there was reference to the investment the companies have made over recent years in upgrading the networks, both for broadband and mobile phone coverage. That investment is paid for by subscriptions from Irish households. If anybody did an exercise on the amount of money spent by each household on their fixed line, mobile, television subscription and broadband services, I would submit that, if graphed, it would come to a sizeable proportion of household expenditure in 2014. That has to be recognised.

The increased investment has brought about a huge transformation in terms of speeds and services in many areas, particularly the commercially viable areas, which are chiefly urban areas. That has led to a huge change in public expectation, especially those members of the public who are looking enviously at their neighbours because they can get speeds and services up to 100 Mb while, across the road, people could be on dial-up. That is the environment in which the companies are working as providers and we are working as representatives. It is a very difficult gap to bridge. In some respects, the industry is a victim of its own success and technology. However, it is causing problems.

I live on the Beara Peninsula in west Cork. It is probably one of the most challenging areas in terms of the provision of any service in the country because of its location. It is a spectacularly beautiful location - I would say that - but that leads to difficulties in the provision of telecommunications services or any other service. It is on areas like where I live that the national broadband plan, under its terms, should be focused.

In addressing that problem, I have a question for the industry representatives, and perhaps ComReg has the information. I see every day different graphs and statistics showing where Ireland stands in terms of broadband speed and penetration per household. There can be five, even 20, different stories, depending on the way the graph is interpreted. Anything less than 5 Mb is not on anymore, in terms of provision of a service. I note the Government has said a minimum of 30 Mb is going to be the standard for the new broadband plan. In 2014, however, if a person has anything less than 5 Mb, he or she is not at the races. Does the industry have an overall percentage, status or gauge as of the beginning of 2014 of the number of households in this country that do not get a consistent 5 Mb speed? We do not want to hear that it is, for example, 70% of households, as 70% of households could be made up between Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway. What is the number of households? I am saying this in the context of companies tendering and looking at getting taxpayers' money to deliver 30 Mb or better in terms of services to those households that are currently on dial-up. Does the industry know exactly where in this country the service levels are critical? There are areas in my constituency that are still on dial-up. It is hugely frustrating.

A classic case would be a presentation we listened to a month ago or more. There was pride in the announcement that 200 km of fibre was planned for County Cork. That is one line from Youghal to the western end. That is a very one dimensional delivery in terms of fibre. That is the scale. I would like to know how the delivery of fibre to every household is going to be achieved. There is talk about fibre to seven inhabited offshore islands. How is that going to be achieved? Is there a timescale for that? Has the industry looked at how it is going to engage with the national broadband plan in delivering those? How much taxpayers' money is it expected will be spent subsidising the companies to deliver fibre to each house? When will this happen? I expect the industry will say the sooner the better. However, people are trying to make decisions about living or continuing to live in an area because they cannot access online services for day-to-day business, even Government business. If a person is trying to set up a business or an SME in those areas where Enterprise Ireland and the IDA have no interest or cannot attract any investment, they are desperately looking at this broadband plan as a potential to begin to or to continue to live there.

I wish to turn now to mobile phone coverage. As Senator Eamonn Coghlan stated, three people living the same house who use three different mobile phone operators will obtain different levels of service. I can inform our guests of where my line drops out and the locations in which I have never been able to pick up a signal. Friends who live nearby have told me that they receive good signals. Are our guests in a position to outline the true position with regard to the level of mobile phone coverage offered by the various service providers in this country? If they were able to do so, it would provide a true indication of whether coverage is improving, deteriorating or remaining the same. Individual operators have different priorities and what we want to discover is the true picture with regard to coverage. As the Chairman stated, all we have available to us is anecdotal evidence. We need an idea of how the industry measures mobile phone penetration and coverage.