Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

I am not restricting people in terms of how they access the Internet. However, we need broadband access. In this case, we will have speeds of over 1 megabit download and over 200 kilobits on the upload. There is also provision for those speeds in the services to be improved in the five-year period the contract will cover.

The crucial issue is to provide customer satisfaction. The nature of the contract and the work that has gone into it provide that if customers do not get the level of services we are setting, there are implications for the service providers. We have checks and balances to ensure the sort of speeds and the service quality we want are provided. This is a significant improvement for those parts of the country that cannot currently get any broadband services. This is a strategic and significant investment by the State to provide coverage so the whole country will have broadband availability.

With regard to the map, provision will be made in terms of electoral districts and will set out the areas that can be covered. This covers a significant area of the country, particularly in the west, north west, south west and rural parts of the country that currently do not have any service. Therefore, this is a significant and crucial action in terms of the next generation broadband strategy set out earlier this autumn. We recognise that universal accessibility is a key development and that is what our national broadband scheme will deliver.

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