Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for the question. The contract for the national broadband plan was signed last year. I was in a rural part of west Wicklow to sign it. I remember my Secretary General saying to me at the time that I had got a lot of abuse about it and there had been a lot of controversy, but I would never regret signing the contract. This national broadband plan will bring high-speed broadband to more than 1 million people in 500,000 premises across rural Ireland, including every home, farm and business. It will cover about 100,000 premises each year, starting next year. It will take seven years to do it but we will try to do it quicker if at all possible. The Deputy's party was wrong to oppose it. Sinn Féin opposed it, so do not pretend that it was in favour of bringing broadband to rural areas. It was against it and came up with no other alternative.

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