Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I agree fully with the concept of people being able to work from a hub or from home. As the Minister of State is aware, Internet access is poor in many areas, although in fairness some towns have been brought up to specification on that. I will be fairly brief. The Minister of State spoke about libraries and different facilities. There are former technical schools, community centres or various buildings in towns that communities are trying to refurbish which could be used to encourage and facilitate people to set up a small office or whatever. The first thing that has to be done is make sure it has Internet access. Second, the building has to be into a proper state for use. Some people have done that under the rural economic development zones, REDZ, programme but it takes a while to do this because of the funding streams required. In fairness, some education and training boards, ETBs, are involved but they may have to go through LEADER, which is a long process. Is there any way we can streamline the Department's rural development programme the specifically target smaller towns such as Glenamaddy, Ballygar, Strokestown and Castlerea? In that way we could make sure we keep local people in local areas.

Broadband officers were mentioned. One can ring them up to tell them the situation regarding broadband access. Many small businesses in an area might call them to explain the position they are caught up in with regard to bad broadband service. However, with the best will in the world, the broadband officers cannot do anything about that. Until the national broadband plan is rolled out throughout the country, they are really only messengers. There are small businesses in rural areas such as Ward & Burke Construction near me which do not have a broadband service. Eir provided broadband extending one mile out of town but beyond that it was a case of to hell with it. Ward & Burke Construction has 22 staff and requires broadband because it works with England, Canada and America. The problem is that we do not have the infrastructure in place. While it is great that private rather than public investment has made broadband more accessible for people to do their work in some towns, that is not the case in many other areas.

I ask that work is done on the LEADER funding especially to make it more available for such facilities to assist them to get up and running. The REDZ project has helped some areas but one might need to spend between €100,000 and €200,000. There is a payback because such schemes will help people to live and work in an area and not leave a rural part of the country to work in a city, thereby increasing the demand for housing in cities. We can talk in circles all day about every bit of smart technology. Down through the past 20 or 30 years many towns, between community centres and different buildings, have come up. I am not saying that progress has not been made. I ask that the final tin hat is put on this and make sure that we can get this facility thus encouraging people into those areas. There is no point denying the fact that the scheme takes money. A library has been mentioned. We are trying to get the library to become a tenant in the technical school in Glenamaddy. It takes money to bring a building up to specification, especially an older building, which the witnesses will know as they know about quantity surveying as well as anybody. To get a kickstart is the big thing to facilitate the people. It is like climbing a stairs; one must create the first step and keep putting in all of the steps to get to the top. I want this work done quickly enough around the country in order to facilitate people.