James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that. The point I am making, just to be crystal clear, is that many houses, taking in tens of thousands of residences in Ireland, will not get any direct broadband connection until 2026. One might assume this is probably because they are in the most difficult to reach areas and the likelihood, as witnesses are well aware, is that those areas are probably the most problematic when it comes to phone reception as well because of topography challenges.

I have a good example from Germany, where the German Government negotiated the contract before the rolling out of 5G that all areas had to be covered with sufficient 3G services at the time. It was quite a prudent move. It is clearly a much larger country with a much denser population so there would not be the same overhead costs in doing that. There have been other countries looking at the same process. I am not being critical but I just want to bring the matter to the fore because it is important. It is not something we often hear about but there are many people out there who are completely cut off. This project is costing billions of euro, and it would be a very small aspect of it to look to accelerate this over the course of the next while.

I compliment the Department. This has not been an easy process for it, and we all know and accept that. I do not want to be overcritical. I have been on-site to see the work NBI is doing. It is an enormous task and I do not underestimate the challenges faced by everybody. I appreciate everybody answering my questions. Will Mr. Neary make himself available to have a quick discussion later on about some constituency matters?