Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I sound like a broken record discussing broadband, because every time telecommunications matters are discussed under Priority Questions the matter makes up at least two, if not more, of the questions. It is difficult not to be more sceptical than before about the claim that the Minister and the Government are prioritising broadband expenditure when there is a cut of 25% in the budget allocation for information and telecommunications technologies programmes from €53 million this year to €40 million next year. At the same time the Minister repeatedly announces his commitment to rolling out next generation broadband in schools throughout the country, despite that fact that he does not know how it will work yet, he cannot say how much money he will allocate to it and we simply have no timeframe. Will the Minister, Deputy Ryan, answer the following specific questions? Is there a timeframe for the roll-out of next generation broadband access to schools for next year? Does the Minister have data available on the extent of broadband availability in secondary schools? How many secondary schools do not have access to acceptable bandwidth? In my view, he does not know the answers to those questions, so I do not know how he expects people to believe he will roll-out next generation broadband to all schools across the country by the end of 2009 or early 2010.

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