Mr. Chris Byrne:

Deputy Michael Collins spoke about broadband provision and community owned broadband services. There is a pilot scheme in the United Kingdom called B4RN under which the lines are owned by rural communities. The lines are provided and managed by rural communities and are an income stream which is a very important point if a community is trying to raise funds to leverage other funds. I agree 100% with Deputy Michael Collins on his point about local communities in isolated areas receiving Leader funding to help to establish broadband lines and then take ownership of them, instead of giving ownership to larger scale multinationals which will only feed the areas in which services are commercially viable for them, rightly because they are businesses.