Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Harrington is absolutely right about the potential of broadband for economic dispersal and job creation in a region such as the one he represents, which I visited very recently for an engagement with David Puttnam, who, I am happy to tell the House, has accepted the appointment as digital champion for Ireland. Living in Skibbereen as he has for the past 26 years, he has arranged a facility where, for example, he can conduct lectures, as he does every week with students in Sunderland, Brisbane and Manchester from his video conferencing facility in Skibbereen. Without doubt, Deputy Harrington is right about the significance of this technology.

In terms of the architecture being put in place by the national broadband plan, I reiterate for the House that the timetabled plan targets will put in place 100 megabyte service for 50% of the population by 2015. A further 20% at least will have 40 megabytes or better. It is principally in the third tier, which will have 30 megabytes or better, that State intervention will be necessary because the private sector will not supply the necessary quality bandwidth to the less densely populated areas of the country. The prospectus we will draw up will require the successful bidders to deliver 30 megabytes, or better. I assure Deputy Harrington that will be more than ten times better than what is available in his area at present. There is no country in the western world - known to me, at any rate - where there is not a difference between the high-speed bandwidth available to densely populated urban areas and what is available in very poorly populated regions. Holland may be an exception but that is a tiny area that is densely populated throughout. There are entire tracts of the United States that have no broadband.

The idea is that tiers 1 and 2 are to be implemented by the end of 2015. The intention in respect of tier 3 is to implement service by the end of the lifetime of this Government. The reason for the date being as late as 2016 is that we have no choice but to go through the State aids procedure because we envisage the investment of State money. The procedure is painstakingly slow and I do not know of any short way around it. We must do a detailed mapping exercise and have just begun preparations for implementing this next year. The idea is that by the end of the lifetime of the Government the successful bidders will deliver a 30 megabyte service.

Deputy Harrington unwittingly stated the target date was 2020 but that is the European digital agenda. Ours is more ambitious if we can deliver on it, as I believe we can. There has been some €300 million of Exchequer investment in the past decade. In the past five years alone private investment in the broadband infrastructure across all platforms amounts to €2.5 billion. There is very significant private investment going on and there is fierce competition. Deputy Harrington is absolutely right. There are parts of the country where provision is very basic and that is not good enough. Broadband offers possibilities of doing business in the regions that was unthinkable before. It has tremendous capacity to keep people in their own areas.

We have connected some 297 second level schools with 100 megabyte service, which transforms the educational environment. We are about to announce the next 200 second level schools in the second tranche and by 2014 we will have connected every second level school in Ireland to this service. Progress is being made.

There are in contemplation a few other very innovative initiatives in respect of the area in which the Deputy is interested. I am not in a position to deal with those, but the House will have noticed that the State has received more than €850 million from telecommunications companies recently as result of the spectrum auction, and in turn the four successful companies are engaged in preparation for the roll-out of next generation access. There is considerable progress and I thank the Deputy for raising the issue.

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