Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)

I welcome the witnesses. This is a hugely positive story for Ireland. County Kilkenny, where I come from, has a large creative sector, including animation, which benefits greatly from high-speed connectivity. It often involves sending very large files internationally. It has had a huge benefit in the sense of keeping employment in our locality. It also helps with our climate objectives in that it ensures people can work where they live in rural communities. This is opening up immense opportunities, particularly for rural Ireland.

My first question relates to that. It is probably not NBI’s role to produce this, but is there any qualitative analysis of the impact of the roll-out of high-speed fibre broadband in rural communities? I am referring to affording people the opportunity to work from home and to farmers, schools, libraries and community organisations being able to avail of high-speed broadband. Is there any ongoing process of gathering data or qualitative analysis of the societal impact of this roll-out?