Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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To clarify demarcation lines on what the Department does about broadband and mobile phones, a task force called the mobile phone and broadband task force has been set up and I chair it. The Deputy mentioned getting everybody into the room but everybody is in the room for that task force. There are local authorities, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, the Office of Public Works, the ESB, telecoms industries, officials from the Department of Rural and Community Development and officials from the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment.

We have a broadband officer appointed in every local authority. To give an example of work carried out, the motorway from Tuam to Limerick has spare infrastructure underground, including ducts and pipes, to take whatever will come in future, such as cables. TII has retrofitted other motorways that do not have it so that it is in place. It has spent a few million euro of its own money to do that so that is ready and all operations can use the same duct. They will not all look for their own space. We have the same type of infrastructure in place from Kilcock to Galway. These are practical examples. When a local authority talks about upgrading the sewerage in a town, such as in Galway city, we make sure through this task force that when the work is being done, spare services in the ground will be facilitated in order that they can be used in future rather than having to dig it up. Those are the kinds of practical things that we are doing.

Heretofore, the operation of road opening licences has been different in every local authority. The charges have been different and the forms have been different. We have standardised all of that so it is the same charge and the same form, and is done on a system that can be accessed by any telecoms industry. It simplifies it and makes it more efficient, so that it is cheaper to install this infrastructure in future. We are also looking at having neutral hosts for this infrastructure so that it is not owned by specific telecoms companies that will not let other telecoms companies look at it. We brought in the Office of Public Works because it has State assets and we may be able to use some State assets to install infrastructure such as masts that may be required on land that it owns. It has maps of and knows what assets it has in the country. We can see if there is a black spot and whether there is a State asset that we can use to get it done fairly quickly.

In the Minister, Deputy Ring's native county of Mayo, for example, the broadband officer has created a digitised map application so that every piece of spare ductwork in the ground in every town in County Mayo is mapped and can be seen by the telecoms industry. That application will be given to every other broadband officer to do the same in every county so that we do not have fellows digging up streets to find out if something is there or not. It will take time but it is common sense to make sure that we do not dig up streets for the sake of it.

The Deputy mentioned black spots and I agree that there are black spots. ComReg has published an up-to-date map of where the good spots are and what providers are there so that if one is buying a phone, one can look at the map first to see whether a phone will work in that area. That was published only three or four weeks ago. It is the most up-to-date map that we have, and it is a true map because it is done by ComReg.

People ask what we are doing about broadband and mobile phones in our Department. We are really talking about this kind of work. We are trying to bring about some common sense across the Departments in the context of what we are doing to create the infrastructure in order that we will not be not digging and re-digging or putting up additional poles when there are already poles in place.

Reference was made to 5G. There is a company called Valeo in Tuam. It invested €44 million last June with the aim of becoming a global centre for the development of appliances for the autonomous car. That is the reality in Tuam and 5G will be needed for it. All of the infrastructure we are discussing will be required in order to enable that. People state that nothing is happening. To an extent, I agree. I do not have broadband in my house. Hopefully, when it is rolled out, it will be done in a very positive way. The broadband officers have identified 300 locations that will be able to accommodate broadband from day one once a decision has been made on the roll-out. It will be delivered into the communities very quickly, if not to every house, at the start of the period of delivery.