Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would be slow to lecture the schools in regard to the use of broadband. The difficulty they have is when the children go home and attempt to do their homework. If they are a couple of miles from the school, they have very poor coverage when they attempt to connect with the Internet. I can understand how some principals would not raise expectations because they find that children are not able to participate in the kind of environment they would want.

We need the Minister to recognise there will be further delays. He should hard wire into the contract documentation minimum speeds well above what is being talked about. As I have met them too, I accept the operators are coming to the Minister and offering him this, that and the other, but unless it is a requirement in the contract documentation, there will be no obligation on the operators who ultimately win the contracts to provide those speeds. It may be available in some areas or at some times of the day, but it will not be available uniformly. Some 30 Mbps is too slow as an upper limit.

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