Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

-----that more than 400 schools are still without high-speed connectivity, over 60% are without connections, and 96% of the landmass is in the State black-spot areas. Households and businesses are suffering because of the standstill with the national broadband plan. Those who are lucky to have some broadband also suffer because of the current communication services in Ireland. It ranks low in terms of broadband speed and quality. Ireland ranks behind Azerbaijan in terms of broadband speed. It is ranked 62nd for its average mobile download speed and 81st for upload speed at the end of 2017. We are 21 out 25 EU member states in terms of broadband speeds, behind Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia and Jersey.

Sinn Féin is proposing that an obligation be placed on suppliers to provide a minimum level of speed. That would help those currently in rural Ireland who have access to some broadband. I am aware of many of them who are trying to run small businesses but they cannot do that with an intermittent level of services. At some parts of the day they have a good quality service but at others it is very bad, which is very difficult for small businesses. I have met some of those people in Laois and in other counties who explained to me exactly the problems they are facing. There are times when the service is virtually unusable. It is vital that is what is there now is brought up to a proper standard. We need to get that minimum connectivity level put in place for existing providers. That is vital for a modern communications network and that cannot be overstated in terms of what we need.

The national roll-out of high-speed broadband is necessary for Ireland to meet any kind of modern economic development and the social, educational and agricultural needs must be facilitated. We spoke about a national planning framework this week. If we are to have a proper national planning framework we need to have the infrastructure to back it up.

The Government must deliver on its commitment to connect the entire country, even in remote areas, at speeds necessary for connectivity now and into the future and ensure that this will be achieved in a timely manner. Also, it must keep the infrastructure in public ownership and ensure that the roll-out of the national broadband plan is based on an all-Ireland framework to enhance the Irish economy to the benefit of Irish citizens.

Much is dependent on this service. Many people are watching this debate tonight and hoping that progress can be made on this matter. It is a hugely important issue that involves quality of life and educational issues. It will affect farmers because from this year, farmers have to apply for their payments and farm subsidies on-line. They do not have broadband connection so how will they do that? Our international reputation is resting on the progress of this and the State needs to gain control. It has a good deal of control; it needs to regain. There are 442,000 households and businesses waiting on it.

See this speech in context