Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Tá mé ag roinnt mo chuid ama le mo chomhghleacaí, an Teachta Broughan.

I have only six minutes so I will get straight to the point. I ask for sense to prevail here. I do not think the Minister will listen to me but it is important, for the sake of the people who elected me and for the public record, that I ask for sense to prevail. The Minister and his Government are being disingenuous on every level in trying to frame this in the context of saving rural communities. I represent the Galway West constituency which includes three Aran islands, Inishbofin, all of Connemara, rural areas of south Mayo, along with Galway city. I am more than familiar with rural constituencies. I have been knocking on doors and can assure the Minister that broadband is not the issue that is coming up, although I acknowledge that I have received many representations relating to difficulties with broadband. What is coming up is that rural areas have been left behind by successive governments. That is why I was elected along with several other like-minded Deputies. We said that we would stand up in the Dáil on behalf of rural communities and argue for regional balance. Let us stop the cur i gcéill and the pretence. I am here speaking with a strong, loud voice on behalf of my rural constituency. Yesterday I raised the issue of the absence of physiotherapy services in Connemara and the lack of social workers on the ground. Only two or three weeks ago there was a protest in Connemara about the lack of roads. Rural areas have been left behind. Kilmaine, Shrule and south Mayo, along with the islands are struggling. Over the past three years we have tried to hold the Government to account and to roll out a policy for rural areas to provide regional balance.

Various telecommunications providers have appeared before the Committee of Public Accounts. I have read a considerable amount of documentation on this issue, apart from the documentation that was published yesterday. Some of the documentation from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform dates from 1 April, which is April Fool's Day. That would be funny were it not so serious. On 1 April, the Department strongly recommended against this plan on grounds of "cost, affordability, value for money and risk". That is repeated throughout all of the other documents. In May, the Department went into detail on the questions of cost and affordability, the impact on the national development plan and on projects forgone as a result. In the context of value for money it refers to "uncertain benefits" and points to "unprecedented risk" for the Exchequer. It calls into question compatibility with the spatial objectives of Project Ireland 2040. On the cost-benefit analysis, which comes up repeatedly at meetings of the Committee of Public Accounts, the Department argues that it is simply "not credible". The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is telling us that the cost-benefit analysis is not credible. This is against the background of a report by Mr. Peter Smyth which told us that the meetings between the former Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Naughten, and Mr. McCourt gave "cause for concern".

I ask again for sense to prevail. There are alternatives. We need broadband in rural areas in a reasonable time and at a reasonable cost. There are other ways of doing this. The Department itself has pointed out other ways. Údarás na Gaeltachta is in the process of rolling out gteic centres on the ground and is crying out for money. In stark contrast to Enterprise Ireland and the IDA, Údarás na Gaeltachta has had its budget significantly reduced. I ask the Government to stop the spin. I thought that we had got rid of the spin unit, but clearly the Government has internalised the spin and actually believes it, which is even more frightening than the €3 billion cost of rolling out broadband to areas where the take-up will be very low. We know this from our discussions on the report on the metropolitan area networks, MANs, at the Committee of Public Accounts. The record of the Government in this regard is disgraceful. A review of MANs was commissioned and a report produced. Has the Minister or the Minister of State read that report? Have they read the Analysys Mason report? Is the Minister aware that the Department did not publish the report until just before the Committee of Public Accounts meeting? There was a significant drop in prices on the very day that the aforementioned committee extracted this report. That is the Government's history in relation to these projects. The Minister spoke about trust and the rural-urban divide, but this Government has stood over and increased the rural-urban divide and intensified it. The Government produced a national development plan which has sustainability written through it, but it is doing the complete opposite.

3 o’clock

I ask the Minister to go back and to look at Údarás na Gaeltachta and at the alternatives for delivering this broadband. Ba chóir dó deireadh a chur leis an gcur i gcéill. Tá daoine na tíre i bhfad níos meabhraí ná mar atá an Rialtas. Ba chóir ceist a chur ar dhaoine sna ceantair tuaithe: cad atá ag teastáil uathu? Tá seirbhís shláinte, seirbhísí tithíochta, córas iompair taistil agus leathanbhanda ar leibhéal agus costas réasúnta ar bharr liosta na rudaí atá ag teastáil. Sin iad na rudaí atá ag teastáil seachas an cur i gcéill agus na bréaga.

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