Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. The Minister gave a clear and concise policy statement on broadband yesterday evening in which he set out the future of broadband services and provided an understanding of where we have come from. I will not stand here and suggest that all is rosy in the garden and that everything that should have been done has been done. That is certainly not the case. There is little doubt that there is still a large deficit in broadband throughout the country. There is no point dwelling on the past other than to learn from it. I am grateful for the Minister outlining how he sees the challenge in the future and how he plans to resolve it. We must take the information, recognise the problem and find a way through it to improve broadband.

Other speakers have set out why we must improve broadband and infrastructure. The competitiveness of our economy will be largely dependent on our capacity to develop the knowledge economy we spend much time talking about. I am not sure we spend as much time implementing it.

Broadband infrastructure is critical in terms of our competitiveness. At one level it is critical in terms of foreign direct investment. Everyone talks in terms of new technology but the truth is that broadband is available to these companies because large commercial, industrial or manufacturing operations can get access to broadband, through satellite or in other ways, because they have such magnitude. The cost will not prevent them receiving it.

The difficulty is the lack of broadband for SMEs, particularly small family run businesses in rural areas. These are the businesses that give the greatest level of employment in the economy. Our focus must be on those companies rather than large multinationals. For reasons of size and scale the latter are usually located in areas where high quality broadband is available. We must target SMEs.

As other Deputies have mentioned, we must consider those who wish to work from home and have a different work experience to that of previous generations and those whose livelihoods are concentrated in the home. Deputy Breen is familiar with the Shannon Development concept of e-towns. They have identified a small village in west Clare where work-life units are being built. These will be enabled with high speed broadband so that people can live and work in the same complex. In order to do so one needs higher penetration of broadband, thereby allowing people to continue their lives in rural areas.

We must concentrate on areas that are effectively dark at present. Those of us who represent rural constituencies are aware that one of the most consistent issues in rural areas during the election campaign was the lack of broadband facilities.

Efforts were made to deal with this in the past but Eircom was less than helpful. It effectively tried to compete only where another competitor appeared. The community broadband scheme, enunciated and delivered by the last Administration, was very helpful and worked very well in some rural areas. It did not work so well in others. It is unfortunate that when a rural broadband community scheme was about to be rolled out, Eircom enabled the local exchange after sitting on its hands for many years before. These are the laws of commerce but I thought it would have concentrated on other areas and worked in co-operation. It will be beneficial to all service providers when everyone has access to broadband. Eircom has not played its part but took a leisurely approach to rolling out the service. Engineers in the telecommunications sector tell me that many exchanges are upgraded at present and it would take very little to roll out the service. However, Eircom is holding back in an effort to retain a dominant position, which is not helpful.

There is a reasonable level of service in some of the urban areas such as Ennis and Shannon. There is also a metropolitan area network in Kilrush but we need to move to the next generation with higher speeds to provide SMEs with the most up-to-date information technology and a faster service. We do not need the same level of bandwidth in the rural areas but we need an effective service that will meet the needs of the diverse community. I welcome the fact that Eircom has rolled out the service in Scarriff and proposed to do the same in Feakle by the end of the year. While helpful, that is not as fast as it should be.

The national broadband scheme, announced by the Government and which the Minister referred to in detail, will be helpful in filling the gaps that currently exist in the network. The quicker we can get to a position where every household can access broadband, the better. This is not the endgame but a primary objective. Then we must move to the next stage, with higher speeds and lower costs, along with the roll-out of new technology to enable people to develop home life, business and communities through access to enhanced technology and higher speeds. This allows people to carry out their business successfully.

Other Deputies referred to the eTeams company in Scarriff, which is involved in translation of various languages for customers throughout the world. It is situated in a small village and through the use of broadband it allows people to work from home. This is the essence of the SME that we must support through the roll-out of broadband.

Service providers must play a more important role. The Minister stated that we have six platforms but, unfortunately, the company that owns the local loop has been less than forthcoming in the unbundling of the loop. While there has been development, there is still no effective competition. The lack of competition is stalling the roll-out of the service. If we are serious about this we must find a system to allow this to happen quickly.

The benefits are clear to see, particularly in terms of maintaining rural life in changed circumstances. Rural life no longer supports people living and working off the land or working in local manufacturing plants. People must do business in the electronic format, as well as conducting their personal business in this way. Some of the back to education programmes show how elderly citizens use the Internet and computers to do their personal business. Figures on the uptake of broadband show that it is not just the younger population who use broadband but also people who have retired and are undertaking back to education programmes. I am delighted we had one of the fastest per capita growth rates in broadband subscription in the year to September 2007, according to the OECD. By the end of the year, we will have 900,000 people connected but we must continue this.

See this speech in context