Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

First, I will respond to the questions from Senator Leyden. The reason SIRO has decided to withdraw from the process is that it wants to refocus on delivering pure fibre broadband to 51 towns across the country to 500,000 premises. As everyone here that has been watching this situation unfold knows, two years ago SIRO announced the roll-out of pure fibre to the towns in question and the roll-out did not happen. As a result of the commitment agreement I signed with Eir, SIRO pulled up its socks in that regard and by the end of this week both Eir and SIRO will have delivered pure fibre to 100,000 premises. Given that both of those companies have decided to go down the route of bringing fibre to the door, Enet has also decided to do the same thing, and announced bringing pure fibre to 115,000 homes. In total, on foot of the work I am doing, the work of the Department and the national broadband plan, we have three companies putting their hand into their own pockets and rolling out pure fibre to 900,000 homes across provincial towns in rural Ireland, including 28,209 farms. We will have a situation where the village of New Inn in east Galway is now going to have a better broadband service than many parts of New York. The same is true of villages like Ballymacward and Ahascragh. That is what is happening on foot of the work being done. As to whether I am happy that 542,000 people outside of those villages are not getting pure fibre next week or next month, I am not happy in relation to it. It is an unacceptable situation that they should have to tolerate that.