Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

The principle here is to get to those communities and the definition used is the areas that do not have coverage at present under mobile, fixed line or other wireless services. Satellite covers most of the country so that exists as a covering system but was not what we were examining in the mapping process. It was to do with the communities that do not have other technologies. There may be exceptions such as houses that are always difficult to get to. We must allow flexibility in that regard but the principle of the scheme is to get to communities with a new technological platform. To a certain extent, whatever company wins, the benefit from this process will be that it will increase competition and encourage other companies not involved in this scheme in rural Ireland. It is no harm to have competing platforms to get better coverage.

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