Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

After years of working in this area, it is my assessment that we often focus on the technology, the wires, the hardware and the way one gets digital information moved from one place to the other. I believe that the key issue for success is in the use and actual behavioural side of it and in what ways the technology is used. The actual soft application side can be more important than the aspect we all focus on, which is the technology side. One must have the technology to be able to start using it but if we can take that as a given, I believe that the real key issue with the national broadband plan will be what type of societal changes, benefits and usage it will encourage. An example related to the current situation in Covid-19 is that in my Department, there are very few workers coming in.

Largely, the Civil Service is working remotely to show a lead in protecting public health and safety. There is a question of how remote working might work best. In the future, it will be flexible in a variety of ways, people might come into work for three or four days a week rather than five, but we might also look at other mechanisms. For instance we can take high-speed broadband connections, particularly in a village or town, and create community enterprise centres where people would work remotely but not at home. There would be an opportunity for social interaction, community enterprise and some of the benefits of being in a shared office where people spark off each other and have ideas. Creating community enterprise hubs around that use of the broadband connection is one example of how we can use the system and services we have. Similarly, what can we learn from the last six months for e-learning and life-long learning, and how we use these video conferencing and other systems? That side of usage is critical for success as much as the technology itself.

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