Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Minister, Deputy Naughten, stated in a speech earlier that he is the only Deputy who has consistently pursued this issue for the past two decades and the record proves the fact. There is no one else in this Parliament who has an interest in broadband. The Minister is not here. It is 120 minutes into the debate. The Minister is the only Deputy who has an interest in broadband and has proved it over the past two decades. Come on, that is hubris and nonsense.

I was involved, as a Minister. We set up the national broadband scheme. We started in 2007. We had the contract signed the next year and we rolled it out on time and to budget. I heard someone else state it could have been faster. I agree, but it was complex. I had to do a similar scheme to that which is being attempted here in having a map and all sorts of complex legal arrangements. We did it in a year. We got the contract signed. This process started in June 2011 with the establishment of the broadband task force. Almost seven years later, we do not even have a contract, let alone a single wire hung on a pole, and that is the real problem.

The Department and the three Ministers have to answer questions as to why we have been seven years. The Minister listed out all the experts. He is crowded out. He seems to have nothing but technicians and lawyers at every turn and what is missing is political leadership to get it over the line.

There is a particular problem because it seems the Minister has made a fundamental mistake by taking the bait that Eir put out there, in terms of delivering 300,000 houses in his time. It was the lucrative idea, politically, with eight areas in Roscommon, of there being 7,000 houses in Roscommon it could deliver to the Minister in the next year. As we all will be aware, this Dáil was probably not long for this world and there was a temptation to say, as a Minister, that he would take those 7,000 houses in Roscommon and be the man who is delivering here and today. However, it was a fatal mistake. It seems that was the reason SIRO pulled out of the detail, namely, that all the lucrative parts of the contract were gone. In fact, even more than that, SIRO would have to have leapt over Eir's engineers and all the work they were doing in certain rural areas to get to the outer fields. It just did not make sense and SIRO pulled out. It was one of the best engineering and telecommunications companies in the world stating that it was interested, it was doing it, it was signed up, it was ready to tender but the Minister changed the nature of the business proposition and it was pulling out.

The Minister stated at the time that one should not worry as we still have a highly competitive race with two experienced consortia, which they were. However, I believe Eir pulled out then with the change of ownership when it realised the business case here. Looking at it, Eir has all the nice lucrative stuff - 300,000 already contract agreed and a done deal - and it does not need to go after the others. Eir even has an agreement with the Department that Eir will get €20 a pole per annum, that is, a €45 million cheque no matter what. Why would Eir continue with the process? The Minister would need to recognise that hubris I mentioned at the start that all is well and fine, or this might help us have a faster deal. He is signing a 25-year deal in a one-horse race and depicting it as a good news story that we have less competitive tendering risk now and maybe we can get it done quicker. We should be honest in saying it was a really bad day for this process when the last of the other competitive tendering companies pulled out.

What do we do, because there is an urgency? I am reluctant to go back and start again. For those houses and for the development of rural Ireland, we need to proceed. However, we have to be very careful because we are locking ourselves into a 25-year system where one could have an impossible situation where Eir is saying that those poles are fine and one does not need an old pole there - they are grand. We are dealing with a company, Enet and SSE, which does not have the same experience that ESB or Eir would have in delivering wires across the State.

See this speech in context