John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister's clarification, but it is important that we have dialogue.  In the past five years the number of broadband subscriptions has increased from 600,000 to almost 1.7 million.  Competition in the broadband providers market has begun to heat up in recent months, with eircom emerging from examinership in June 2013, UPC upgrading its current services and the announcement that the ESB is to enter the market.  I hope these changes will result in improved services for urban dwellers and heal the current rural-urban divide.  If the urban-rural divide remains, we will have a two-tier economy in which urban areas will enjoy strong growth, while rural areas will be left behind.

  In recent months companies have gone from door to door to sell television and broadband packages.  There is considerable competition, which I welcome.  However, according to Ookla's household download index, Ireland ranks 43rd internationally for average Internet download speeds, behind Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria. ComReg reported in 2012 that 16,000 Internet users had dial-up connections.  One third of Internet subscriptions rely on mobile broadband, which is expensive, variable in quality and synonymous with small data caps.  Eircom estimates that 6% of the population cannot connect to DSL connections.  If one adds these figures together, 250,000 people have mobile, satellite or fixed wireless services.  Our patchwork broadband infrastructure makes the service unusable, even for those with DSL connections.  A report by Netflix indicated that Ireland had the second worst spread of the eight countries it had surveyed.  However, I do not put much weight on such reports because they do not always reflect the truth.  Perhaps the Minister is a position to contradict them.  We cannot always run ourselves down in regard to the services provided because we have come a long way in the last six years in providing adequate broadband connections.  There will be pitfalls and roadblocks along the way, but I hope the involvement of the ESB will help to eliminate the problems that arose previously and go a long way towards providing top of the range services in both rural and urban areas.

  We will be proposing an amendment to section 5 of the Bill to ensure the development of electronic communications facilities on private property will not have a dramatic impact on property rights and ownership and that such work will be carried out with care and minimal detrimental impact on the properties concerned.  Our amendment would provide for a complaints procedure to the Commission for Energy Regulation where the criteria set out are not fulfilled.

  Advertised speeds must be binding on Internet service providers, with the possibility of issuing fines for breaches.  Some providers advertise unrealisable speeds. Ireland's small and dispersed population does not make the economics of broadband roll-out attractive when compared to many other countries.  The major companies that provide broadband services are cherry-picking urban centres and inclined to stay away from rural areas.  The national broadband strategy commits the Government to a range of actions that will facilitate more efficient roll-out of infrastructure and maximise the use of existing assets.

Ireland's broadband costs are among the highest in the OECD, which compared cost and quality of service. I presume that is because of the sparse population in some parts of the country and trying to reach out with broadband.

In many rural areas to which different Deputies on the far side of the House have referred, there are small companies providing important employment. In the rural part of a constituency, two or three such companies can provide perhaps 15, 20, 30 or 40 jobs. Such jobs are important to the economy of small villages and towns through the country and it is important that we would be able to provide state-of-the-art broadband services for such companies in the future.

As I stated at the outset, I welcome the fact the ESB is now getting involved. I would have preferred to see the company go it alone, but it will be in partnership with some of the major communications companies in this country and throughout Europe. The Minister might outline when he is replying why the ESB could not get involved on a stand-alone basis completely. As I stated, the company was successful in the provision of electrification of Ireland and in providing the service down through the years, through good times and bad, through good weather and bad. We might get an outline of why the company cannot go it alone in providing this infrastructure rather than in partnership with other companies.

Overall, I welcome the Bill. I ask the Minister to continue to take a strong interest in rural areas that are not getting the services they require to enable them to expand, develop and survive in the world of modern technology. When one considers that ten or 12 years ago mobile phones were probably only coming on the market, we have moved so far ahead that all the bookings for flights and for concerts and all of the different areas that people want to access in their day-to-day living are dependent on the speed of broadband. I certainly welcome the Bill. Hopefully, we will see ESB every bit as successful in this area as it has been in the provision of electricity.

See this speech in context