Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I apologise to Deputy Aylward for the delay in responding to him, which is not good enough. I have previously raised the issue with my officials and I will do so once more on foot of the Deputy's comments.

As regards Eir, I hope to meet with its new owners early next month and I will inform them of the Deputy's comments on a query line for Members.

On the dark blue area, there is a problem across the country with areas in which we are told by private operators that high-speed broadband is available but it is not so available at a minimum of 30 mb per second 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That is why on several occasions in the House before we locked down the map I asked Members to make the public aware that if they were in a dark blue area but were not receiving that minimum basic standard, they should come forward with their postcode so we could amend the map. We are noting all such areas. We will amend the map to reflect that, and those areas and premises will be addressed through a universal service obligation or the national broadband plan. All premises, whether in O'Connell Street in Dublin or the most peripheral part of County Kilkenny, County Roscommon or County Clare, will have access to high-speed broadband.

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