Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his detailed response. Can I take it from him that just because a commercial operator claims it will look after an extra 300,000 households, as was the case with last June's announcement, the Department will not take that at face value? Can he confirm that there will be detailed scrutiny and that an area that was to receive State-led intervention will not necessarily be knocked off the list unless the Department can be assured of a swifter roll-out of broadband that is at least of equal quality? If so, I will be greatly reassured. It is important that my constituents know whether that will be the case.

State-led intervention is the right approach where there is commercial failure. Previous Governments were happy to sit back and leave this to the private sector, which has given us a patchwork map of broadband across the country. Obviously, the commercial sector was always going to look after large urban areas first because they had more customers and larger returns were possible, which meant that small areas such as villages and one-off houses in rural areas were left behind. We have been left another mess to clean up, as we must ensure that everyone gets equal access and the commercial sector does not get the jump on us.

Last year, I surveyed a large number of constituents in my area about the effect on them of a lack of broadband. It brought home to me the positive impact that a change would have. We are a little more than one hour from Dublin. A number of my constituents could work from home a couple of days per week, not clog up the roads, have a better quality of life and be at home at 5:30 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. That is not even to mention children who want to study or do projects online, the possibility of watching television on the Internet, etc. Small businesses must be located in towns because people do not have sufficient broadband speeds to set up at home. For Ireland to develop a more even spread of our economy so that the economic recovery is not urban-centred, broadband is necessary. I look forward to developments in the coming weeks.

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