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

I live in rural Ireland. My constituency and native county have the worse broadband coverage in the country. I am very conscious of all of these issues. My Department is conscious of all of these issues. This is a matter on which we are actively engaged on an ongoing basis.

On the issue of quality, the Deputy made the point that families need fibre-to-the-home now. Anecdotal evidence I got from some rural families that were offered fibre-to-the-home indicates they have said it is too expensive and that they have 4G, which is sufficient to meet their needs. The reality is that families currently do not need fibre-to-the-home. Some businesses may need it but what we are putting in place is a network for the next 25 years. I have no doubt, and it may be in five or ten years' time, that fibre-to-the-home is required but we are making sure that this network is future-proofed. What we are doing in the short term, however, is providing a basic level of service that meets families' needs, whether it is to do with downloading information from the Internet or accessing Netflix or video content, to ensure they have the capacity to do that. The mobile phone and broadband task force will deal with some of those problems in the short term.

See this speech in context