Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

I wish to share time with Deputy Martin Ferris tonight, and with Deputies Seán Sherlock and Thomas P. Broughan tomorrow night, with the agreement of the House.

I listened with great interest to the Minister but it seems he has not quite got the point of the Fine Gael motion. I commend Fine Gael on working out a very clear approach to the issue of broadband. It is an old ploy that when one wants to reject something, one says it does not go far enough. That is a chestnut, really. The proposals in the motion are very clear cut. They deal with a range of issues, including setting out targets, ensuring those targets are met, reporting back to the committee, as well as with practical issues like ducting and so forth. It is a comparatively long motion and it is most regrettable that the Minister could not have taken it in the spirit in which it was presented, accepted it and worked in a real spirit of co-operation.

There is absolutely no doubt that broadband is now part of essential infrastructure and is required in any advanced, successful society. Quite apart from its importance in ensuring our economic future, and there has been much emphasis on that tonight, the provision or lack of broadband is an indicator of progress across a range of social, community, educational and health care developments. The fact that we are debating broadband provision in itself is a sorry indicator of a sorry Government record. We pride ourselves as a nation in having a successful and advanced economy but at the same time, the official record is one of a failure to manage the simple roll-out of broadband nationally.

At a time of growing economic pressures and indeed, with a change of Minister, the expectation has been that renewed effort on the part of the Government would bring about a sea change in this area. Had it done so, we would now be talking about next generation networks and how we can keep ahead of our competitors across Europe and the world. Instead, we are still trying to catch up while other countries forge ahead of us.

In 2004, the Government was bragging about Ireland becoming one of the top ten of the OECD states. Today, we lie in 22nd place out of 30 countries and are still talking about the most basic broadband provision. Everybody understands and is delighted to see the increase in take-up. That is very welcome but we still have an enormous gap to make up. We are still foundering, essentially, around the bottom of the EU broadband league. While there has been a steady growth in the penetration of broadband to 16.8% here, a figure from the European league, that is only about half the penetration of Denmark, the Netherlands or the United Kingdom and frankly, it is laughable to hear the Minister claiming that the fact that families in Denmark are smaller explains the difference. That is almost quaint in its approach but it does not convince.

Another statement from the Minister which did not convince was made on "Morning Ireland" two weeks ago when he said that in many instances, we are actually ahead of Northern Ireland. That is hardly the case when one considers that in January 2006, Northern Ireland announced it had achieved 100% broadband penetration. Its population is broadly similar to ours. While I accept that the service may be at low speed, at least it is available.

While access to broadband in Ireland is growing, albeit belatedly, many other countries are pulling far ahead of us. The issue is not simply about access either. It is also about the quality of the service provided, as well as its cost. The problem that we have, which has been raised in this debate, was articulated clearly by the CEO of Forfás, Mr. Martin Cronin, recently, when he said:

We continue to lag other countries in terms of the range of services available and investment in next generation broadband. Ireland needs to future-proof its telecoms infrastructure so that we can deploy Next Generation Networks in a timely fashion, which will mean far greater bandwidth capacity, more efficient networks, lower costs for operators and a wider range of advanced services for enterprise.

That is the challenge. He also went on to warn that we have a very narrow window of opportunity, but one does not detect a sense of urgency from the Minister. In some ways, though, it is a bit difficult because the Minister is making one speech, while his poor old civil servants have put a lot into writing another speech. Sometimes, they do combine but ——

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