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

On the national broadband plan and the intention of the providers, I ask that the areas that get less than 3 Mbps would be the first to be considered under the national broadband plan to be upgraded to get to the 30 Mbps. A commitment to this would be fantastic. Looking at taxpayer-funded investment, where the industry might step in and upgrade a 15 Mbps service to 30 Mbps, it is borderline commercially viable. Providers might prefer to get State investment to get such a community up to 30 Mbps instead of going out to a place that is clearly not commercially viable and will take significant State investment, where people are on anything from dial-up to 3 Mbps. Those areas should be prioritised as soon as the tender is finalised and there should be a commitment to them for the first delivery of the national broadband plan.

There are approximately 2.3 million households in the country. Although they are not represented here, the fixed wireless operators provide a cost-effective and increasingly efficient service to many parts of rural Ireland, although one could argue that there was a muddled start. These operators have not been mentioned. How do the witnesses see those operators coming in as part of a deal under the broadband plan tendering? Could they take up some of the slack?