Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

Extolling the virtues of the ESB and its achievements within the current ownership arrangements, as the Minister has done, is all fine and dandy, but all of that will change, and change absolutely, if the Government sells off a stake in the company.

I would like to address the defence by the Minister of the Government's policy with regard to the privatisation of Telecom Éireann and the impact it has had on the State's telecommunications infrastructure and the future of next-generation broadband. Forfás, Ireland's policy advisory board for enterprise, trade, science, technology and innovation, stated in a report last year: "Ireland is lagging at least 3 to 5 years behind competitor countries in terms of rolling out infrastructure capable of high speed next generation broadband."

Serious questions have been raised across Europe about the effectiveness of policies based on liberalisation or privatisation measures with regard to investment. The EU has recognised this by changing its state aid rules to facilitate joint public-private investment in broadband infrastructure. Such is the problem that, for example, academics Palcic and Reeves, in their recent book entitled Privatisation in Ireland: Lessons from a European Economy, have proposed the setting up of a new public next-generation network company which could finance any investment through its own borrowings and remain off-balance-sheet. Many European countries, such as France, Germany and Belgium, still retain sizable shareholdings in their national telecommunications companies for this very reason.

Eircom's promise of increased investment in the next-generation network is of course welcome, as will be the work of the Government's next-generation broadband task force, but we get no sense from the Minister that he appreciates the urgency of this challenge. It is all well and good to talk the talk of next generation broadband delivery, but if the Government does not walk the walk, real growth across a number of sectors will simply not happen.

The Minister also praised the saturation of mobile broadband services last night. I am sure if the Minister ventures outside the Pale he will realise that for hundreds of thousands of rural service users, mobile broadband is not a real option. Unfortunately, if they live beside a hill higher than their knees, access is limited, slow or just non-existent. Ironically, it is the ESB that could best address the State's broadband deficit through its existing infrastructure.

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