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

The Deputy has raised these issues on a number of occasions. I accept that there are gaps in the system, but, as I have said before, in terms of the significant State investment in the national broadband scheme, for example, if that had not been done, there would not even be a basic service in many parts of the country. There are technical reasons which I entirely accept and issues that arise such as contention where the speeds promised have not been delivered, which is true, but, by and large, the protocols in place for the national broadband scheme with 3 have worked quite well. The Deputy raises a bigger issue which, in the main, although not exclusively, has to do with the dispersed thinly populated areas of the country which are the focus of the Department because of the mapping exercise under way. It simply has to be acknowledged that the commercial sector will never move into such areas and provide a service; therefore, the State has to do it and obtain state-aid approval, an issue we have dealt with on other occasions. I have no doubt that we will come back to the EU report to which the Deputy referred. To be honest, I have not had an opportunity to look at it or the methodologies involved, but we are a very long way from having an integrated market, which is the desire of the Commissioner. There are huge issues confronting us at that level.

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