Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The rural economy is facing many threats and challenges, not least the Brexit challenge due to its reliance on agrifood and small and medium sized enterprises, SMEs. Broadband is critical infrastructure for SMEs and households across rural Ireland. The Government's performance to date in implementing the national broadband plan has been shockingly slow and ineffective, revealing an incapacity to project manage, execute and deliver a plan of this nature. The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, confirmed this as far back as 2015 when he said the Government has lost patience with the pace of the roll-out. The procurement process has been ongoing for a considerable length of time.

There have been many commitments. In 2012, the then Minister, former Deputy Pat Rabbitte, published a plan committing the Government to providing 100% broadband provision well ahead of 2020. In its 2016 manifesto, Fine Gael committed to the provision of high speed broadband to at least 85% of premises by 2018 and 100% by 2020. In 2016, the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Naughten, said that the contract would be awarded by June 2017. However, now we cannot even get a date from that Minister for when the procurement process will be completed. The decision to allow Eir to proceed with 300,000 households appears to have condemned the remaining 542,000 households to an indefinite wait for broadband. Ronan Lupton of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators summed up the situation when he said that the commercial viability of the national broadband plan is now in question. He said, "We're in Angola with regards to rural broadband and it looks like we're going to stay in Angola".

The reason for the Government's decision regarding Eir, which is a commercial company, must be far more transparent. Does it fundamentally alter the procurement process, given what companies were originally tendering for and the new situation? In the replies the Minister gave to questions in the Dáil he spoke about the next phase of the plan and so forth. However, the deadlines have been missed and the programme for Government commitment is way out when compared to what was said. There must be full transparency on this. Why is the Minister not in a position to give a date for the completion of the procurement process and the awarding of the contract in respect of the remaining 542,000 houses? Otherwise rural Ireland will be condemned indefinitely in terms of the provision of broadband, which will have dire consequences for the retention of investment and attracting inward investment in the future.

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