Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We can of course. We will put the Department on the list.

Under the heading of any other business, I wish to raise a matter. The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications appeared before us at today's meeting. During that, there was a discussion with the programme manager of the national broadband plan. His broadband actually dropped; his connection collapsed in the middle of the meeting. Apart from being unsatisfactory for committee members and anyone who was watching, it underlines the need for the national broadband plan to be accelerated and brought on stream quickly.

The committee should be insistent with senior officials at the very least.

The main item today, which was flagged, was the national broadband plan and the principal person dealing with that was not on site, be that in Leinster House or the Department in Adelaide Road. While other Deputies may wish to comment on this, as a member of this committee that is not okay to me. The senior official should have been in Adelaide Road or on the grounds of the Houses of the Oireachtas if he were joining remotely, or preferably sitting in one of the seats in the committee room. I propose to ask the clerk to the committee that every effort should be made to have witnesses attend on site. If they are not on site, they should be at their headquarters, be that a Government Department or an agency. They should at least be in their organisation's headquarters with a good connection to the Internet. The senior official was upstairs in the dormer room of his house.