Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his reply, but he did not outline a timeline for the roll-out. People outside the main cities are increasingly frustrated because broadband is not being delivered and there is not a realistic timeline for its delivery. As the Minister stated, 52% of households in Donegal will require State intervention in order to have a sufficient level of broadband connectivity, but they do not see any light at the end of the tunnel.

Broadband should be bringing traditionally peripheral counties such as Donegal more towards the centre in terms of their connectivity with the world. If one has proper broadband facilities, one can work from anywhere, yet we are actually falling further behind as the broadband era develops because we are not achieving connectivity. I will cite an example. In recent months, Moville town has experienced regular outages of a couple of days at a time in its limited broadband. This is the environment in which we expect growth and business development. If the Government does not ensure delivery-----

See this speech in context