Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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East Galway is ahead of New York and South Tipperary is ahead of South Korea. I mean, come on. I had this vision that we would provide fibre to every home. Every house has an electricity wire attached and every house has a phone line pretty much attached. I thought to myself can we not make that leap in order that every house would have a fibre connection, and maybe competition between those two wires in getting it in would make sense. My idea is shot now.

I have only one question. In May, the Minister said the national broadband scheme would be predominantly a fibre to the home solution. There is a world of a difference between a 30 Mb connection and a gigabit connection that one gets with fibre to the home. What is the percentage of homes in the broadband area that the Minister estimates will now have fibre to the home rather than wireless or other technology? Forget about hedge cutting, boreens and buses. How many of those houses will have fibre to the home access?