Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

I thank the Minister for his reply. This raises issues concerning the standard, quality, speed and cost of broadband. There is a danger that because the Minister wants to say he is providing universal coverage that the service he will provide will not be acceptable. A business woman in my constituency has satellite broadband but she finds that because of the time delays it is totally inappropriate and almost useless and she cannot access corporate networks.

The other complaint I received relates to schools which have satellite at present. The service is completely inadequate. It is not sufficient for the Minister to trumpet that schools will have good systems in place when small rural schools depend on satellite. He must accept a basic standard should apply across the board rather than simply dealing with numbers. Irish Rural Link has stated some 12,000 households are not within the national broadband scheme. What is happening to these?

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