Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his reply. What he did not tell me is "when". I acknowledge that some places are benefitting under the Eir intervention. I have checked the list, and 5,063 premises or households in the areas the Minister mentioned will benefit. One can see them on the map that was produced with the scheme. That is all welcome. A concern I have about this - I have raised it with the Minister previously, and he might give me an update on it - is the Eir situation. If it services a group of houses or a village on a route and a provider comes in to provide the service beyond that, will that be an obstruction to another company being able to roll out broadband further up the road? The Minister might give me an up-to-date reply on that.

Regarding the commuters, out of a relatively small workforce in Laois, between 11,000 and 12,000 people drive out of the county every day to work. The Minister beside Deputy Naughten, Deputy Ross, is doing his piece with the widening of the M6 and M7 to cater for this, but we need to get some of these people working in the county. I have met directly people who have small businesses and self-employed people who could work in the county. One woman in the eastern side of the county told me she has three employees and they all go to Dublin every day. The only reason they go to Dublin is its infrastructure. If they had the infrastructure in the area where they live, she and her three employees could happily work from a premises there. They do not need a large premises; they work in the IT sector. The county council would get a little revenue from rates paid by her, she would be working locally, the local community and local shops would benefit and we would all benefit from that. That is the kind of thing one comes across: students who cannot access broadband to do homework, etc. I ask the Minister to tell me roughly when this procurement process will be closed. I also heard what he said about what he would do if he were starting out again, that he might not have gone down the route that was taken with the procurement process. He might give me a brief explanation as to what he meant by that.

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