Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Department is telling us now that it planned something in 2004 for metropolitan areas and that if rural broadband comes on, it might be one of the biggest users of a scheme designed for urban areas. That was never envisaged as a purpose. While it is great if it is possible, it shows the excess capacity that is there. What I do not understand is the following. We are here talking about the national broadband plan and the number houses it will serve yet here we have invested in State infrastructure to provide 94 towns with metropolitan area networks and the Department cannot tell us how many houses are connected to it. Mr. Griffin now tells me the ESB, Siro, Vodafone and others are in the process of starting to take connections from MANs to connect houses. Why would the MANs not be used in towns to connect houses when they are now deemed suitable to connect as source points for rural broadband? I do not understand why the houses in those towns are not connected. There might be certain big company offices or shops. I cannot understand all the focus on the costs of broadband for the future to connect houses when we have a massive scheme covering 94 urban areas but the Department cannot tell us how many houses are connected to that. Surely, we should know what is connected to the metropolitan area network. There is an awful gap in information when the Department is asking us to make a jump to count houses in rural areas but it has not even counted the houses in the urban areas that are already accessible.