Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I recently heard the Taoiseach eulogise the Land Development Agency comparing it to the electrification of Ireland, a comparison I often use when I talk to the Minister about broadband. I think that is a joke but I also think it is such a shame that we privatised broadband. It will go down in history as one of the worst decisions this Government has made. Of course, I welcome and look forward to those 450,000 homes and businesses getting access to high-speed broadband. They have been promised it for years and it is about time they got it. However, I believe that this is a disastrous decision and that the Minister has been made a bit of an eejit by all these bidders who dropped out one after the other and left the Minister to come in here to try to justify what is going on. When we do find out who the bidder is and how much it has cost, we will see whether the Minister can ever justify what has happened to our national broadband infrastructure.

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