Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Lawless and I are singing from the same hymn sheet. The reason for the establishment of the mobile phone and broadband task force was that I was deeply frustrated by the announcement by my Department, before I became Minister, that there was further delay in the roll out of the national broadband plan. I looked at it and asked what we could do in practical terms. I had it included in the programme for Government that this task force would be established within the first 100 days. In advance of the task force being established, I met with each of the telecoms operators in the country and asked them to come forward with the problems and bottlenecks they were having with rolling out their networks. Over the past four years, €1.7 million was being spent every day by the telecoms operators in the country. I want to see that investment ramped up. What this task force and the actions in it will do is facilitate that happening. We have already started to implement them. I am getting regular reports from the team working on this and I intend to see significant movement and improvement, not only in mobile phone coverage or wireless broadband coverage but on fixed line broadband coverage in 2017.

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