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

I agree with Deputy Moynihan that we ought not to allow a new divide to arise in the country - this time a digital divide - between parts of the rural population and urban Ireland in terms of the services available there. The basic training programme to which I referred is an attempt, in part, to address that but Deputy Moynihan raises the more fundamental question about the availability of broadband in rural communities. The problem is that we have the least densely populated rural areas in Europe. In common with other rural parts of Europe, the roll-out of broadband to these areas is immensely expensive.

In regard to where we are with the plan, the Deputy will understand that because the State must intervene, we must go through state aid procedures in terms of getting approval in Europe for State intervention.

Every day, the commercial sector is improving the service that is available in large tracts of urban Ireland. Deputy Moynihan is correct when he says that the service is entirely inadequate in parts of rural Ireland. I accept that. We have started the mapping exercise with the suppliers. The EU requires us to present a detailed and supported application for state aid approval to roll out this facility to rural Ireland. I hope - the Deputy should not hold me to this - we will have finished the mapping exercise and made the submission by the end of the year. We are trying to do that with as much despatch as we can.

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