Dr. Stjohn O'Connor:

I wish to come back in on two points. You are absolutely correct, Chairman, in your point about the broadband officers. The broadband officers have been identifying premises. One of the core functions of a broadband officer is to identify locations that may not be getting the commercial speeds that are advertised and to report that back to the Department. That process has been ongoing and has been quite successful. There is good communication between the two Departments.

The process is very well understood. In fairness to the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, it came in and presented to a number of telecommunication action groups, TAGs, as to how to do that, how to understand where premises were and what type of premises they were. That process is well understood and continues to this day.

The other point I would make is around the broadband connection points to which there have been a couple of references. It is probably worth clarifying again. As Mr. Ó hÓbáin said at the outset, broadband connection points were identified for the most rural locations. Rather than those communities not having access to any high-speed broadband for the duration of the roll-out, the decision was taken to put access into those communities. I have to say the response to date has been hugely positive. We have close to 220 of those public access BCPs; there are different types but 220 of those are already live at this point in time. Mr. Ryan and I were down on Clare Island on Friday and we heard brilliant stories coming out of that BCP. For example, we heard of somebody who defended their dissertation via the BCP, we had a husband and wife team who have their own company and were working remotely from the centre in Clare Island throughout the process and we also heard from a number of students who were using the remote working centres throughout the period of Covid because that connectivity was there. That is being replicated all across the country. Without fail, it is a positive, good news story and the communities are delighted.

The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, launched the connected hubs call earlier this year. We spent about €10 million building up this national network of remote working hubs and BCPs and a good 40% to 50% of the money we have supported has been to upgrade BCPs. We now have our portal and we are delivering activities across e-health, remote working and arts and culture. For example, we have a film night coming up in December that is going to be run through the BCPs, we have taught people painting online using the BCPs and we have had uileann pipe training. These are the kinds of activities that build communities. Yes, we might only get one BCP in one county but, across the country, we are bringing a network together.

What we see very much for next year, as the deployment finishes on those public access BCPs, is that we are going to move into the next phase, which is very much about driving activity, in particular community activity. I sat here last September and I said exactly the same thing, namely, the BCP is whatever the community needs that BCP to be. For some, that will be remote working, and we will be doing training with Ludgate quite soon for all of those BCPs that want to pursue that, and for others it will be about social activities. Even down on Clare Island, they have a festival every year and there is no reason they cannot broadcast that festival through the BCP to other BCPs. Again, we are bringing new things and different things to these communities that would not otherwise be available. It is a very positive story and all of the reports that are coming out are very positive.