Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

I will happily answer each question although a number of them are addressed in further parliamentary questions, which I hope we will reach.

The national broadband scheme has taken slightly longer than we would have liked. My hope is that the detailed work that has gone into the preparation of the contract in advance, whoever the bidder is, will mean we will have swift roll-out and delivery on the commitment within it by mid-2010, which is the rough timeline set out.

With regard to ducting into each building, we have established a working group with the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to consider the implementation of regulations. This is in the more immediate delivery timetables and will happen some time in the next number of months.

On the issue of the one-stop shop and its management of access to public infrastructure ducting, this is a more complex project and one that required us to go to consultation. In that consultation process, I wanted to hear from industry and the various people involved as to how it would be best managed. There are a variety of options, including the management of some of our assets, such as metropolitan area networks. It is right and proper for us to get this very significant and important project right, which is what my Department is doing in consultation with State agencies such as the National Roads Authority and other bodies that have a direct interest. This has gone from the consultation phase into the implementation phase. My Department is working with those agencies to set out how we can best do that.

In terms of the management of the existing metropolitan area networks facilities, none of those has been hindered from active use because of the lack of a second phase management contract being signed. All of those facilities are available for use on the basis that an interim management system is in place which is capable of providing fibre availability. The issue of the development and use of metropolitan area networks must be taken into account in the overall context.

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