Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in. I do not envy them, especially on the back of a lockdown, where people will say it is all their fault. It is not. This has caused huge delays.

I have to say the BCPs have been brilliant. We have ten in Clare and we are getting one in my own village of Inagh, which is brilliant. There are a few questions I want to ask. How is the Department getting on with Eir and what is the relationship like? Is it a co-operative relationship? Is it slowing things down or is it progressive? We have had issues where Eir has brought in fixed-line broadband very close to houses but they are not allowed to connect to it. In my own case, I am 5 km from Eir fixed broadband and the NBI website tells me I will get it at Christmas 2023, which is not too bad. When I talk to people in Ballyvaughan who are only 2 km from broadband, they have been told they will be waiting until the period between January 2025 and December 2026. Are the logistics being done around trying to get as many done as possible for those who need it most? I work from home and I have good broadband although, of course, I would love to have fibre broadband. However, there are businesses like Gregans Castle Hotel in Ballyvaughan that have to pay €450 per month, and they cannot go to a BCP to do their work as they have to have it in-house. It seems an awfully long time to wait. How does it take that long?

There are people who come together on the ground in communities. In my own townland of Ballyea, we have 121 houses and we have surveyed them all. They are all ready to go and we have fibre broadband very close to us. Maybe it is much more complicated than I realise but it seems it is not very far away physically, so I do not understand what the big delay is, apart from Covid, which has definitely set things back.