Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

I thank the Minister for his broad reply. Is the Government's main input in this area the provision of the MANs, which represents a significant investment in fibre optic rings? How many of the commercial suppliers of broadband use the MANs? If the Minister does not have the information to hand, will he forward it to me later? What was the turnover of the MANs in the last financial year? While they are operated by an independent company, I would like to ascertain how successful the strategy has been to date.

I am interested that the Minister is optimistic that the target of 500,000 customers will be achieved by next year because it is ambitious. While the increase in take-up over the past year is welcome, the figures presented by him earlier demonstrate it is slowing.

The dramatic increase in DSL broadband connections which occurred last year and saw up to 120,000 connections by the end of the year has slowed considerably based on the figures presented by the Minister today. The first four months of this year saw only an additional 20,000 connections.

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