Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

A couple of years ago in my old house in Ranelagh I could not get broadband because of a paired split on the DSL line. I eventually got it by putting a fixed wire connection to a distant point. There is a range of different reasons. Largely the areas are where electoral districts had the vast majority of homes covered by existing subscribers, and under European competition rules we were precluded from going in. This is an area where one had 5% or 10% of the electoral district, which is the lowest level we can come down to. That was an insufficient number to allow us to go in under competition rules. I am working from memory but I understand the number is in the order of 12,000 homes but I could be wrong. We are examining ways we can plug that last gap.

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