Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I am happy to report that thanks to a combination of significant private and public investment in broadband provision, the vast majority of premises here, including many hard-to-reach rural premises, can now avail of at least a basic broadband service. The provision of telecommunications services, including broadband services, is a matter in the first instance for private sector service providers operating in a liberalised market regulated by the Commission for Communications Regulation, ComReg. The State will also intervene in the market where there is evidence of clear market failure.

The national broadband scheme and the recently-launched rural broadband scheme are examples of such intervention. These interventions must be on a technology-neutral basis to comply with EU competition law. Completion of the national broadband scheme roll-out last October means that all premises in the national broadband scheme target areas now have access to broadband services. The recently-launched rural broadband scheme is specifically aimed at targeting those few remaining premises in rural non-national broadband scheme areas that for whatever reason are still unable to avail of a service from a commercial provider.

My Department is currently accepting applications under this scheme and will continue to do so until 29 July next. I encourage all Deputies to make constituents aware of the existence of this scheme and my Department will undertake some further promotional work in this respect between now and the end of July. I am satisfied, therefore, that Ireland will comfortably meet its EU's target of having basic broadband available to everyone by 2013.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

My Department does not collect or possess the type of statistical data referred to in the Deputy's question. However, ComReg, in its role as regulator and promoter of competition in the Irish market publishes quarterly data on a national level which provides a wide range of information in regard to broadband penetration by technology platform. This statistical information on the Irish electronic communications market and benchmark data from other countries is collected and analysed by ComReg's trend unit and is available on its website, www.comstat.ie

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