Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister spent a lot of time talking about what the commercial companies are doing, particularly with regard to what is already happening. This has very little to do with the State. I am aware that SIRO has committed to 51 towns. There is a problem when it comes to the 300,000 households now cherrypicked by Eir, however, because Eir has a stranglehold on matters. If one looks at any county in the country one can see exactly what Eir is doing with its mapping process. It is occupying positions on roads where there are groups of houses and villages but not getting to the hard to reach places. Eir already has the infrastructure in place and copper wire already running through many houses. The Minister and his officials have not thought this through very well. When it comes to long-term competition in the area of rural broadband, there is very little incentive for Eir, if it wins the contract, to ramp this up and roll it out speedily.

It can do it as slowly as it wants and turn the roll-out of it on and off. It is in the command position because of the 300,000 households but also because it already has copper going to many rural homes. The Minister knows the reasons SIRO pulled out of the process. It was because of the competition aspect and it said so in its statement, but any competitor that would be in the race to get this contract would have to roll it out much quicker because Eir already has a cable going to a house. It is already getting €30 or €40 a month from that house.

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