James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to make an observation on Leaders' Questions which happened two hours ago. The Taoiseach sought to reach across the floor to get support from the Opposition for the plan. It was ironic, given the lack of interest that he had in Dáil support or Dáil majorities a year ago when my party introduced a motion to review the national broadband plan, which was passed by the House. It was completely ignored by the Taoiseach and the Government, despite constitutional constraints. Article 28.4.1° of the Constitution states: "The Government shall be responsible to Dáil Éireann." That has been flagrantly violated in the current Dáil, so plus ça change.

I will take a more fundamental approach to querying the plan. The basic premise behind the national broadband plan is that many areas, primarily but not exclusively in rural Ireland, are unviable for the private sector. Broadband will not be delivered by the private sector because it is too difficult to do so and it is commercially non-viable. As a State, Government, or perhaps Oireachtas, we are making a decision to subsidise somebody to go in and do it. It cannot be done for profit. We will pay somebody to do it as a State subsidy of the public good. That is fine. We do that in many different sectors, such as public transport and healthcare. We can ask why we need a subsidy and why these areas are impenetrable in the first place. Why are these areas commercially unviable? Why is the private sector delivering to some areas but not to other areas? That is where I would start. I would put the question on its head. We have seen one instance in the lifetime of the current plan where we had 300,000 houses, which were considered unviable two years ago, suddenly becoming viable. To an extent, I am living proof because I live in a house which now enjoys 300 Mbps fibre broadband. It was amber two years ago, then became light blue, then became commercial. I have it. I am paying for the privilege and I am happy to do so.

When I was a councillor, long before I was in this Chamber, I tried to get rural broadband rolled out in County Kildare. It is a local example but it is reflected across the country. I met the broadband providers and asked them why rural areas and other areas in my constituency were not being served by them, what the problem was and why they could not roll it out. The locals were more than willing to pay for the service, even at a premium if they had to. I got a number of interesting answers, including lack of planning consistency; different planning frameworks; different local area and county development plans; lack of economies of scale, some of which arose from the fact that were inconsistencies in planning overhead; regulatory overheads; legacy frameworks; and the lack of availability of access to State sites, such as through Coillte or the OPW or other State sites. The bane of many people's lives is when a road is dug up repeatedly. I asked the companies why they dig up the road repeatedly to lay new ducting and cable for utilities, though it was fibre in this case. They stated that based on the rates that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform mandates Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, to charge, it is cheaper to dig up the road than to lease infrastructure from TII. All kinds of anomalies came out of these discussions. It was useful for me to understand why the private sector was not delivering to these areas.

Many of these issues were mirrored by the many task forces. We have had at least a decade of promises on broadbands, all of which have been missed, abandoned or rescheduled.

We have also had at least three different task forces reporting, summarising and consolidating the issues and asking why the private sector is not willing, able or viable to get into these areas. The proof is in the pudding. We have the proof from the many task forces and from the horse's mouth, as it were, from the broadband providers.

The Sunday Business Post usefully wrote about this at the weekend and we have heard already about the likes of Imagine going to 5G and Eir going into 300,000 houses. I appreciate there is a debate about the technology and I agree that fibre is the best according to the laws of physics. We can deliver fibre, masts, 5G and multiple technologies faster and easier if we enable the private sector to get in there by reforming how we deal with planning, the frameworks around it and how they operate. It is very unlikely we will get to 540,000 houses but could we get to 500,000, or 450,000, or 430,000? Could that figure of €3 billion become €2.75 billion or €2.5 billion if we chip away and look at the problems rather than trying to throw in a State subsidy of €3 billion at the problem and try to make it go away? We should get to the root cause and make proposals that would make it easier for the private sector and offer incentives, not with any subsidy or State handout, but by tackling the problems that make it more difficult for the private sector to go into these places, the reasons it is commercially unviable and the problems with the planning framework.

I was at the Hill of Kilteel two weeks ago on a local election canvass. Counties Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow meet at that point and a provider putting a mast on that hill could feasibly have to engage with three different local authorities with three different local area plans and planning frameworks to try to put 5G or fibre infrastructure on that hill. One would have to go and rent a ducting from the N7, a mile down the road, and might find out it is actually cheaper to go in and do it oneself rather than trying to lease it from the State.

Where do we go with all this? Happily, I have legislation which I published in 2017, almost two years ago, which enables all of these things. It takes the issues and anomalies and includes such provisions as a new planning permission for a new build to have ducting from the curtilage of the house back to the road. It includes things like consistencies in planning frameworks and access to State sites and properties. It also includes common-sense things that deliver economies of scale and protect communities and the environment such that if one provider erects a mast on top of a hill, a provider coming afterwards does not put in another mast but is mandated to reuse the existing infrastructure. That provides free use of infrastructure, be that public or private, and once the cable is laid and the mast goes in, it will be reused and there for ever more.

My legislation is not a sliver bullet to solve all the problems but it would make it much easier for the private sector to penetrate some of these areas and, as I say, the €3 billion might become €2.5 billion and the 540,000 homes might become 440,000 and so on. We might be in a better position now had the Government adopted this legislation when it was published two years ago. It can travel in parallel with the plan because they are complementary. The price comes down every step of the way.

I ask the Minister to support this legislation, which is already in the system and before the Oireachtas. It would be complementary and parallel to the broadband plan. The Government might consider plan B because if the plan fails, which unfortunately it has for the past decade, this may allow greater private sector take-up and allow more houses get access to broadband more quickly without recourse to State subsidy of €3 billion.