Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I look with great hope across the table. The Atlantic economic corridor was mentioned. A person can take a train from Limerick and do very well until he or she reaches Athenry, when the train will stop even though there is a railway line in place. If one is driving from Limerick one will find that the motorway stops at Tuam. I look forward to working with both the Minister and the Minister of State on developing the Atlantic economic corridor. I am sure that my colleague will join me in kicking up the tables to ensure that the corridor does not stop at Tuam or Athenry. Progress has been made, but we must push it further. We have to connect Mayo into the national network of decent road and rail services.

With the two Deputies present in the Department, I am very hopeful that we will see progress.

I am going to put my head on the block now and may get it taken off. I will be straight and honest about post offices versus rural broadband. People are migrating online for shopping and social welfare. We all know it. I do an awful lot of business online. I have probably stood in a bank three times in the past 30 years. It is just the way of the world. We do know one thing. If we had ubiquitous, high-quality fibre broadband into every business premises and house in this country, the guts of a million people who live in rural Ireland would be online and using that broadband virtually every day. That is the population of Dublin, give or take. When I see people here in the great city throwing their eyes to heaven because it might cost €250 million or €500 million, I ask if they can show me a train or Luas line in Dublin that will carry a million people a day and that can be built for €500 million.

I am not one of those guys who go around saying rural Ireland is done. The area I live in is much better than it was when I went to live there in the 1970s. We were dependent on manual phones then. If I was asked the one thing we need to make rural Ireland grow, the answer would be high-speed mobile and fixed broadband into every premises, covering every area and road in rural Ireland. Do that, and the people will do the rest.