Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

I appreciate the Minister's acknowledgement that we are in a catch-up phase. It is perhaps a more honest answer than the one I got from the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Ryan. John McElligott, managing director, of eBay also wrote to me on foot of previous questions I asked. I will quote one line from his letter. "I am embarrassed to tell my peers in other countries about Ireland's connectivity problems. Ireland is nowhere in terms of on-line application usage and innovation." While that might be an exaggeration, it is clear that we are behind and playing catch up. My difficulty is that the Minister's answers always seem to relate to EU averages. Ireland should not be talking about EU averages. We should be a world leader in broadband and technology.

I highlight the area of broadband speeds where we are behind other countries. I would particularly like the Minister to address this area. The average advertised speed for broadband in Ireland is 3,011 megabits per second compared with Japan where it is 93,000 megabits per second and France where it is 44,000 megabits per second. If Ireland is to become a fibre island, a knowledge economy and the world leader about which we all talk and preach, we cannot afford to be 30 times slower than Japan or in 28th place in the broadband league table of OECD countries, ahead of only Turkey and Mexico. I appreciate that the Minister is not being complacent about it, accepts there is a problem and that we are playing catch up. However, we are not catching up fast enough and are very far behind. I would particularly like the Minister to address the issue of speeds.

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