Ms Karen Murtagh:

The question of broadband connection was raised. The Department runs the schools' broadband programme which is for primary schools. We have a framework of 14 suppliers in place. Every school is tendered for with these suppliers and the best connection offered by the market within budgetary constraints is provided to the schools.

In Mr. Robert O'Leary's case, he received his 12 Mbps connection. There was no 100 Mbps connection available to the school. The connections one can get depends on where one is based in the country. A person living five minutes down the road from someone could get a 100 Mbps connection but that connection would not be available up the road, as there is not the technical capacity to provide it. We are constrained because of that.

Under the framework 2,900 of the schools will go out tender by the end of next week to see if we can get improved connections. The remainder of the schools would be schools on lower connections and for those schools we tender every two to three months to see if there is anything better in the market. That brings me to why we are moving all schools off-satellite. We would have got better connections. Many of those schools are located in very rural areas, such as in County Donegal and under the tendering process many of them have got very good connections.

There will be very good 50 Mbps connections installed. We continue to make improvements at all times but we are aware that we need to do something more for primary schools. There are many schools with a 3,200 Mbps connection yet post-primary schools have a 100 Mbps connection. That is part of our priority at the start of the strategy.

On the technical support and the education and training boards, we consulted one of the ETBs as part of the development of the digital strategy. They outlined their technical support model. Again, when we look at technical support we will be consulting with the ETBs as part of that process.