Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)

In the five minutes allocated to me I will do my best to cover the issues I feel are pertinent. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion and to support it unequivocally. I wish to address a number of general points relating to the national broadband scheme, the lack of roll-out of broadband to rural areas and the need for the Government to adopt a universal service obligation similar to that which exists for postal and telephony services.

With regard to a universal service obligation, on 7 February last I received a letter from the Commission for Communications Regulation following representations by me on the issue of inadequate or no broadband provision in villages such as Ballyhooly and Glanworth. I speak of these villages because they are typical of many rural areas throughout the country. I was told in this letter that ComReg imposed certain obligations on Eircom but these obligations stretch only to the rights of a citizen to a functional telephone line, capable of carrying voice and data over 28.8 kbits.

While this obligation might have satisfied the Ireland of 20 or even ten years ago, it no longer goes far enough in terms of providing adequate telecommunications to the Ireland of today. Universal service obligation broadband must be enshrined in legislation as an entitlement.

The politicians of my parent's generation made representations on matters relating to the provision of telephones when no one could get access to a telephone line. Politicians of my generation make representations on the issue of broadband, when parts of this country are bereft of what is now considered an essential service. That people of my generation are being told that next generation networks are being rolled out when people living beyond the Pale are still using dial-up and can only rely on that narrow bandwidth is a joke when the average modem for a computer is 56 kbits.

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