Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Tánaiste will be aware of Eir's decision yesterday to withdraw from the Government-sponsored national broadband plan. This followed the decision by SIRO, a joint venture between the ESB and Vodafone, to withdraw late last year. Three of the most experienced and established utility companies in the State have opted out of the Government process to provide broadband infrastructure to 542,000 homes and business premises dotted throughout rural Ireland.

In 2011, the Fine Gael-led Government promised that broadband would be rolled out to every premises in the State by 2016. That did not happen. Yesterday's announcement signalled the collapse of the Government's plan. When negotiating a programme for Government, in which the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Naughten, played a key role, the Government indicated that a deal would be done and a contractor would be appointed by June 2017. That date slipped. Virtually every date that the Government has set since talking about a national broadband plan has been missed.

When asked repeatedly in the House to outline the projected contract signing date and the dates on which work would begin and be completed, the Minister dodged the questions and instead waxed lyrical about all of the broadband that was being rolled out throughout Ireland, failing to mention that it was being rolled out by commercial operators based on their commercial decisions and, in many cases, duplicated a pre-existing service in densely populated areas.

From his former role as Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Tánaiste knows the profile and character of rural Ireland. He knows the kind of people whom he has met on his visits there. He knows the farming communities, the small communities and the small businesses that support farming and require access to high-speed broadband. He knows the people who live in rural Ireland and the students who come home at the weekend or every night and need access to broadband in order to pursue their studies. People living in rural Ireland need access to broadband to conduct their banking and for their basic life pursuits, but they have been continuously deprived of it and have been sold a pup time after time.

When Vodafone and the ESB pulled out of the process, it should have raised a red flag in the Department concerned, but it did not. The withdrawal of Eir should have signalled a crisis in the process, but it has not. Amazingly, the Minister, Deputy Naughten, has welcomed the clarity provided by the withdrawal of Eir. He believes that shovels will be in the ground more quickly and that the project will now be delivered on budget and ahead of schedule. What cybergalaxy is the Minister living in? The situation is farcical. Months of detailed negotiations are still to take place between the remaining bidder and the Government on pricing and technical matters, so there is no guarantee that a deal can be arrived at or if the deal proposed by the Government will remain viable for the 25 years of the contract. The last thing the 542,000 homes and businesses need is another false dawn or, worse still, a contract that collapses a few years into operation.

Fianna Fáil proposed that this infrastructure should have been built and owned by the State. The Minister rejected that proposition, claiming that it would create significant delays to the project. The Government put its faith in the market, but the market has turned its back on the Government. In light of what has happened, will the Government now consider changing the nature of the tender so that the State will take responsibility for building and owning this infrastructure?

See this speech in context