Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy has amazed me because he normally examines all sides of a proposition before making statements on it. He sounds like a spokesman for a well known company that has opposed the MANs from day one because they would provide it with competition in various places.

The programme will not pay for itself in one, two or three years. It is a long-term investment, as was the investment in the Atlantic crossing that connected us to international broadband services. The PAC examined the crossing and decided that the investment of €80 million was a good one. It has not repaid the State since it started operating.

The MANs programme does not duplicate fibre in many places. Indeed, the programme is providing fibre to many places that would never have had fibre otherwise. We started the project because there was no roll-out of broadband by the incumbent. Instead of taking the incumbent's route of copper wires, we decided to put in place fibre optic cable, which is the cable of the future. In five to ten years, we will be trying to complete a full fibre optic network. Whether this will be done by the State, the telecommunications companies or a combination is open to debate, but it is the direction we must take if we want the type of broadband roll-out referred to. I am sure the Deputy is anxious to have this done and I urge him to be more careful in his assessment of the programme. It is not meant to have repaid the State by this stage and it will not do so for another ten or 15 years. It is not in direct competition with DSL or copper-based lines. Rather, it is providing a future-proof network.

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