Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Many of the questions I intended to pose have already been asked. I remember being the chair of the Southern and Eastern Regional Assembly in 2014, which covered Clare to Fingal. At that time, Alex White was the Minister. We once had a room of 53 councillors where it was so obvious and palpable that half of the councillors had nothing to say about broadband and the other half were enormously exercised about the fact they did not have it. Those from urban areas of Dublin and some of its hinterland in north Wicklow, Kildare and Meath were absolutely silent and had nothing to say. Those from other places were hugely exercised about the fact they did not have broadband of any description that was useful. People were driving to hotels to pick up their emails from their laptops in the car parks. It seems that in certain parts of the country nothing has improved all that much in the past seven years. This is what frightens me for all those people who do not have broadband. They have been promised it for so long that it just does not seem like it is coming.

My other concern is from a State perspective. Broadband needs to be treated in the same way as we treat running water and electricity. Every house should have it and should have as good a quality service as every other house. Equally, there are parts of the country that are almost inaccessible or where it is very difficult to provide the service, although I hear from the witnesses that satellite and various types of wireless are coming on stream. Twenty years ago, when houses were being built they were being wired with category 5 cabling so they could have computer technology. Three or four years later, it was scrapped because in the areas where it was possible, everyone had wireless broadband. There were wireless routers in the houses and every device could pick it up. My concern is that we will spend a fortune giving everybody fibre and in five years' time, we will discover we did not need to do so, in the same way as we do not use phone boxes or phone cards the way we used to. As a state investing in technology by the time it gets to the places it is needed it may be out of date. I do not know who the best person is to respond to this.