Séamus Healy (Tipperary, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

Last week's development involving the former Minister, Deputy Naughten, has put back the delivery of rural broadband to 540,000 homes and businesses by up to five years. He was the third Minister to announce a national broadband plan with great fanfare. Pat Rabbitte and Alex White did so before him, but none of the three delivered. Rural broadband is absolutely essential for the economic and social life of rural Ireland. This infrastructure is as important as the electricity, road and rail networks. Rural dwellers are absolutely entitled to the same broadband facilities as their neighbours in cities and large towns. This plan started to collapse when the former Minister, Deputy Naughten, decided to allow Eir to cherrypick the delivery of broadband to 300,000 of the more easily reached rural homes. ESB and Vodafone pulled out quickly after that decision was announced. Eir pulled out not long after they did so. The privatisation of Telecom Éireann has bitten back. When it was privatised by Fianna Fáil in 1999, it left the State without control of the telephone network. This has made the roll-out of rural broadband more expensive and more difficult and has put the State at the mercy of the private market and the profit motive. It is now widely accepted that the privatisation of Telecom Éireann was a huge mistake, but that is not the full picture. The privatisation of Telecom Éireann by a Fianna Fáil Government, and the maintenance of this policy by successive Governments, was a deliberate political decision that must be reversed. I have absolutely no confidence in this Government.

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