Mr. Jeremy Godfrey:

To answer the Deputy's question about speeds in the west of Ireland versus those in areas on the east coast, the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources has on its website maps which show the areas - I believe they are in blue - where high-speed networks providing speeds of at least 30 Mbps are either already deployed or planned to be deployed by the end of this year. There is also an amber area, which is the rest of the country, and I think the Deputy will see if he looks at the maps that Dublin is all blue and most of the west of Ireland is amber. What is to be done about this? That is precisely the focus of the Government's national broadband plan. I am not the decision maker on that, but the Government has said that it is its intention to intervene to deliver a network that is capable of speeds of at least 30 Mbps throughout that amber area, and in fact it is already in the procurement process to choose the contractor or contractors that will deliver this. The detailed questions the Deputy raises about the timing and guarantees are matters for the Government, but our understanding of it is that the minimum speed requirement in that procurement is 30 Mbps.