Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

Broadband infrastructure and telecommunications policy is the primary responsibility of my colleague, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.

There has been much debate and discussion about broadband provision over the past few years. As a result of forward-thinking investment many years ago our international broadband connectivity is superior to or as advanced as any provided by our competitors. This is a key factor in Ireland winning ground-breaking investment, most recently from Microsoft that will see an investment of $500 million in a new data centre that will house tens of thousands of Internet servers. Furthermore Novell has decided to centralise its Europe, Middle East and Africa TeleWeb operations in Ireland.

These are just a few of the major Internet investments we have won against robust international competition from other countries equally ambitious to be knowledge centres for tomorrow's Internet and broadband economy. Ireland has been successful because these companies rely on robust, resilient and extensive broadband networks for their business, which we provide.

I am aware that there are still challenges in this area and that we are playing catch-up with regard to overall on-line applications, participation rates and penetration. We have seen significant increases in this respect and I recently received a copy of a letter sent to the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Eamon Ryan, from the director of eBay and I have agreed to meet with him to discuss his concerns.

At national level broadband subscriptions now account for over 63% of all Internet subscriptions, of which there are almost 700,000. This is an 87% increase on the corresponding June 2006 figure, so we are making belated but dramatic progress. ComReg estimates that Irish broadband penetration, including mobile broadband, in June this year was 16.48% compared with 18.1% across the EU 25.

Of much more significance is how broadband penetration is growing. The recent OECD report shows that Ireland has the strongest per capita subscriber growth rate in the OECD, adding 6.6 subscribers per 100 inhabitants during the year, far ahead of the OECD average of 3.65 per 100 inhabitants. Accelerating broadband connections at this pace is rapidly shrinking the gap between Ireland and other countries. On residential costs, which are also important for competitiveness, Ireland is five places less expensive than the European Union average. None of this is to suggest complacency on our part. There are issues around the evenness of availability of broadband across the country as well as the adequacy of the infrastructure in use.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

Total investment under the communications and broadband programme 2007-13 will be €435 million. To date all gateways have open access, high-speed fibre networks constructed under the MANs. The MANs consist of high speed, fibre optic rings linking the main business districts to a co-location centre. By making these available to all operators on an open access, carrier-neutral basis they are stimulating competition by removing the need for service operators to build their own networks. The group broadband scheme enables smaller communities to obtain broadband through Government grants. Some 27 MANs have been built and between 2007 and 2008 some 90 networks will be completed. A total of 160 GBS projects have been approved. Funding has also enabled the construction of a third fibre optic backbone network by ESB Telecom and the upgrading of more than 50 telephone exchanges to permit DSL broadband delivery. Consideration will be given to a further phase of MANs once the effectiveness of spending under the first phase has been assessed.

With a view to our future needs in the domain of telecommunications, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources will, in the coming months, publish a policy paper on next generation networks, NGNs. The paper will consider and learn from international experience in NGN roll-out, review current communications policy and analyse policy options on the optimum role for Government in the evolution to next generation broadband. I understand the Minister intends to convene a national advisory forum on NGNs to critique the paper and provide expert high-level guidance on future developments in the telecommunications sector. This is an important initiative because next generation communications infrastructure is emerging as an important factor in the competitiveness of advanced economies and in our circumstances to help progress to the next stages of economic growth.

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