Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

The EU statistics agency, EUROSTAT, published a report, "Internet usage by enterprises 2007" on 10 December. This showed Internet access by enterprises in Ireland at 94%, which is the EU average. In all, six member states were at 94%, ten were above average and ten were below average. The average rate for broadband connection was 77%. At 66%, Ireland was among 13 member states which were below average, one was average and 12 were above average. No data was available for France.

It is important that statistics such as these are seen in context. The reference period for these statistics was 2006. Since then, Ireland has experienced and continues to experience considerable growth in broadband. A recent report from the OECD shows that we have the strongest per capita subscriber growth in the OECD, with Ireland adding 6.6 subscribers per 100 inhabitants during the past year, almost double the OECD average of 3.65 per 100 inhabitants. More than 20 operators provide broadband services in Ireland over a range of platforms; DSL, cable, wireless, mobile and satellite.

ComReg's latest quarterly report published yesterday shows broadband take-up continues to grow strongly. In Quarter 3, broadband subscriptions grew by 8% to more than 700,000, which represents year-on-year growth of 61%. When mobile broadband is included, total broadband subscriptions stand at almost 800,000, this brings the total growth in broadband subscriptions over the quarter to 14.6%.

The number of mobile broadband subscribers in Q3 2007 stood at 88,400, almost double that at the end of Q2. Broadband penetration for Q3 2007 is over 16% compared to the EU average of 18.2%. When mobile is included, Ireland's penetration rate is 18.4%.

In the case of business broadband, the near-universal take-up of fast broadband services by bigger businesses is being followed by large scale SME take-up. ComReg's eBusiness survey showed that 79% of SMEs had broadband services as of July 2007, compared to 30% two years previously.

The widespread provision of broadband services continues to be a priority for Government.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

In that regard my Department has undertaken initiatives to address the gaps in broadband coverage. These include providing grant aid under the recently concluded group broadband scheme and investment in metropolitan area networks, MANs.

There are still some parts of the country where the private sector will be unable to justify the commercial provision of broadband services. In order to address this issue the procurement process for a national broadband scheme, NBS, is under way. The NBS will provide broadband services to areas that are unserved and will ensure that all reasonable requests for broadband in unserved areas are met.

The procurement process is being undertaken pursuant to the European Communities (Award of Public Authorities' Contracts) Regulations 2006 using a competitive dialogue procurement process.

The first phase of the procurement process, pre-qualification questionnaire, is now complete and four candidates have pre-qualified to enter the next phase of the procurement process. As my Department indicated on 2 September 2007, the four candidates are, in alphabetical order, BT Communications Ireland Limited Consortium, Eircom Limited, Hutchinson 3G Ireland Limited and IFA Motorola Consortium.

The Department has invited these remaining candidates to participate in the "competitive dialogue" phase of the procurement process and to present their proposed solutions to meet the Department's requirements for the delivery of broadband to the unserved areas of the country. It is anticipated that a preferred bidder will be selected and appointed in June 2008.

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