Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

Some time ago Fine Gael decided to commit Private Members' business this week to debating the importance of making high speed broadband available across the country and the challenge to the Government of making that happen. The vital importance and potential of an advanced broadband infrastructure in Ireland is underestimated by many, including some politicians and policy makers. If we do nothing else this week, I hope we can instil an increased sense of urgency to the broadband debate and a recognition that what is needed now are definitive actions from the Government to facilitate, encourage and where appropriate force the pace of rolling out what has become known as next generation broadband in Ireland.

I had hoped to be able to achieve a consensus with the Government parties on this motion. It would have been a strong and positive signal from this House if we could have agreed a clear wording on the importance and urgency of creating a modern broadband infrastructure, and an agreed set of initial actions to achieve that aim. That is exactly what my motion is trying to do. It would have been a particularly strong statement of intent, considering the kind of partisan politics that has recently been forced on this House by the actions and statements of the Taoiseach. However, the Minister and his Department have decided not to go down the road less travelled, presumably out of a fear of conceding that problems exist and of committing to set achievable targets on broadband penetration, price and speed in Ireland.

This Fine Gael motion is a little long, but that is because there are many strands to the issue. The text and proposed actions are not particularly controversial, they are not party political at all, and they are not even directly critical of the Government's performance — and God knows there is no shortage of ammunition to do that. This motion is simply a factual assessment of where Ireland is at in terms of broadband infrastructure. It is a recognition of the vital need for high-speed affordable connectivity and it contains, most importantly, a set of proposed defined actions to move us in the right direction.

I appeal to the Minister, Deputy Ryan, to reconsider the Government's approach. Anybody who knows anything about the broadband challenge that we face could not stand over the Government's amendment as a fair reflection of the current state of play and what needs to be done to improve things. The Minister's amendment simply slaps the Government on the back in a self-congratulatory way for its performance and foresight on the issue, focusing on a few positives while totally ignoring all of the serious deficits that exist in Ireland's telecommunications infrastructure. The Minister should at least have the honesty to admit that all is not well and that a new ambitious approach is needed.

There is not one positive specific action proposed in the Government's amendment. Instead we have the promise of a new policy paper on next generation broadband at some undefined date in the future, following consultation with another forum on broadband and following further consultation with the stakeholders after that. The Government's approach is to congratulate itself for all the great work done to date on MANS, on regulation, on increased subscriber figures, and to continue a consultation process indefinitely on next generation broadband. This will not inspire confidence in those looking to the Government for leadership and urgency on this issue and it certainly will not inspire confidence in people across the country who cannot access any form of broadband service. There are many such people, some of whom are in the Visitors Gallery.

What is most disappointing is that this response is coming from a Minister who regularly calls for real debate and cross-party co-operation on issues of fundamental importance to Ireland. This is the man who wants to keep party politics out of vital policy debates, the man who wants a Tallaght strategy on climate change policy, and I agree with him on that. However, this response to our motion either shows that he has not got the courage of his convictions or he is simply not being allowed by his civil servants to work with us on this. Perhaps the thought of agreeing with a Fine Gael motion simply was not palatable to his Fianna Fáil partners in Government.

Whatever the reason, the Minister is playing politics with a motion that could have been amended and a compromise agreed, which he chose not to do. Instead he continues with the consultation process on next generation broadband for concrete action sometime in the future. All the while Ireland falls further behind our neighbouring and competing countries in almost all of the measurable performance indicators relating to broadband. The four main performance indicators that measure our performance on broadband are penetration, which measures the percentage of people subscribing to a broadband service in a country; speed, the non-technical term related to bandwidth which describes the speed that information or data can be uploaded or downloaded though a broadband connection; availability, related to the ability for consumers or businesses to access a broadband service at all; and price, the cost of using a broadband product or service.

In terms of penetration, figures released yesterday by the European Competitive Telecommunications Association place us 12th out of the 15 original EU countries. Our penetration rate is 16.8% compared to an average of 19.9% throughout the EU. Most significantly we are well below our immediate neighbours and competitors. The UK and Belgium have a 25% penetration figure, Finland and Sweden are on 30%, Holland and Denmark are on 34%. These countries have a similar spread to Ireland of urban and rural people. The Minister will say these figures do not include mobile broadband subscribers and that mobile broadband has been a real growth area in recent years. That is true, but the figures do not include mobile broadband due to the risk of double counting, as many people with a fixed broadband service also have a mobile subscription. It is commonplace for people who rely heavily on broadband to have a fixed line in their office and mobile broadband as they travel around or at home. We should not be double counting. However, our penetration rate even including mobile connections is still below the EU 25 average for fixed-line-only penetration. The Fine Gael motion recognises that the numbers of subscribers have increased dramatically in the last 12 months, but we still have a lot of catching up to do.

The figures on broadband speed are even more worrying. The latest OECD figures from October 2007 put us at 33rd out of 35 OECD countries for average advertised download speeds, ahead of only Mexico and Turkey. Ireland's figure is three megabits per second compared to the OECD average of 13.7 megabits per second. The figures for the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden and France are 10.6, 13, 21.4 and 44 megabits per second, respectively. On the other side of the globe, South Korea and Japan, two countries with which we must compete, have average speeds of 43 and 94 megabits per second, respectively. Although these figures refer to advertised speeds as opposed to actual speeds — some in the industry have a concern in this regard — they give a good guide as to what is universally accepted to be Ireland's disastrous position in terms of the broadband speeds available to the vast majority of businesses and consumers.

Availability is a major problem, particularly in rural areas. The Government concedes that at least 10% of the population has no access to a broadband service of any kind. However, as this figure is derived from asking broadband companies, rather than consumers, what is the position, many people suspect the actual figure is much higher. For example, a reliable survey by Leitrim County Council found that 50% of the 1,000 people interviewed had no access to a broadband service. The Government has established the national broadband scheme to address the issue but ComReg has conceded it will not achieve 100% coverage. It is very likely that due to substantial problems with competition law, coverage may not even come close to that figure.

Price is also an issue of major concern and figures from Forfás indicate that the fastest connections available to businesses cost four to five times more than much faster connections in competitor countries. While progress has been made on improving backhaul infrastructure and unbundling local loops through regulation, we are certainly not at a stage where we can sit back and presume no further work is required. We need to ensure competition in the wholesale provision of infrastructure delivers keen pricing and sufficient capacity and bandwidth.

It is also necessary to consider improving our international broadband connectivity. The global crossing project, which was controversial at the time of construction, has proven to be a great success and needs to be built on. We need to consider establishing a similar project to create substantial international connectivity via a cable coming ashore outside the Dublin area for the purpose of attracting data centres and similar businesses reliant on such key infrastructure.

The broadband debate is essentially about two fundamental issues, namely, availability and access for everybody and speeds. In contrast to the Minister's amendment, which does not call for action but focuses on having more consultation, I call on the Government to commit to specific, achievable steps that will impact on the availability and speed of broadband.

The centrepiece of the Fine Gael Party plan is ducting, a type of pipe that houses fibre optic cable and constitutes a large part of the cost of installing high speed connection throughout the country. My party calls for new regulations to require ducting to be installed in all new buildings to ensure future homes and businesses are fibre enabled and, where appropriate, in road developments to ensure backbone infrastructure is constantly upgraded in a cost effective manner, with minimal need for expensive digging work. Most important, we call for a series of actions to ensure the roll-out of new ducting in areas where it can have most impact in subsidising the private sector's installation costs for fibre optic cable. In this regard, Fine Gael calls for an immediate audit of all broadband telecommunications infrastructure under public and private ownership in order that we identify what infrastructure is available. This audit must focus specifically on what ducting is available.

The Fine Gael Party wants, through regulation, to achieve open access to all ducting to enable competition between infrastructure providers at wholesale level, as has been done in France with considerable success. We also want a broadband roll-out management company established to manage on behalf of the State, negotiate with the private sector and invest moneys from the budget committed under the national development plan in new infrastructure, as required.

The motion sets targets because the Government has repeatedly shown itself incapable of meeting targets in many areas, including e-government projects and the White Paper on Energy within the Minister's brief. It is for this reason that the motion is insistent on setting targets and holding the Minister to account by providing that he report every six months to the Oireachtas committee on his achievements.

The motion calls for the future-proofing of the national broadband scheme to ensure we do not cement the urban-rural divide on broadband by failing to provide for sufficient speeds. It also proposes a number of measures to promote the demand side of IT and broadband by targeting schools, public transport and the elderly. While this list of demands will not solve all problems, it makes a good start. I commend the motion to the House and urge the Minister to support it.

See this speech in context