Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

What I have gleaned from the Minister's reply is that he does not know how many homes or premises will be covered by the national plan or when the procurement process will conclude.

4 o’clock

There is no clear timeline for its completion and no plan that dictates a start point for the roll-out to begin. I am not laying this at the Minister's door as he is a relatively short period in office. However, he deals with constituents in the same way that I do. The programme for Government in 2011 stated that 90% of the homes and businesses in Ireland would have fibre broadband by 2015 but that did not happen. Prior to the 2016 general election, commitments were made to meet the target of 100% coverage by 2020. The pre-procurement process is underway and contracts were to be awarded by June 2017. We were told there would be a three-year to five-year timeframe for the ultimate build-out.

The Minister can understand how vast groups of people throughout the country do not believe anything that emanates from his Department at this stage and anything he has said today would not give them confidence. It is a kind of rolling exercise - it depends on how it goes. The facts are that there are many people in homes and communities who are in dire need of broadband, not just for business, but for education for their families and so on. We understand the contracts will require nothing more than a document speed of 30 Mbps and an upload speed of 6 Mbps, while the commercial world is offering up to 1,000 Mbps. Much higher speeds need to enshrined in the tender documents.

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