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

I thank the Deputy. In response to the earlier question from Deputy O'Rourke, I said we had met both Eir and Vodafone to discuss this issue of the customer complaints service. I used that opportunity to also ask about the roll-out of broadband in other areas. There are a number of points. First, the key next stage in the development of rural broadband is the involvement of Eir and the ESB in taking these surveys, given 130,000 houses have been surveyed already, and turning it into a plan, pole by pole, for how we get fixed broadband to the house. The company committed that it would give it full urgency and do everything to match what exists in government and in NBI, which is a desire to accelerate the roll-out programme, particularly because of the acceleration in the demand for broadband services due to Covid. That is possible, and it requires Eir to have a critical role.

Second, the company said it has now delivered on the 300,000 or so houses that it had committed to providing with high-speed broadband in rural Ireland, on time and ahead of schedule, with a huge pick-up in demand. With Cork accounting for one eighth of the country, that would equate to some 35,000 houses in the Cork area that will have got broadband through that service, although I will have to check that figure with the company.

Third, and critically, SIRO, which is a joint venture involving Vodafone and the ESB, has also been very successful in rolling out broadband, more in towns than in rural areas because that is where it has targeted. The Deputy is correct that it is important we get the national broadband plan right. However, it is also important that, in other areas of rural Ireland which are not in the intervention area, in the towns and, I have to say, in the urban areas as well, that we get the same level of investment so every single house in this country has access to the high-speed fast broadband that we need. I am confident in the policy we have, given that there is a variety of different companies which are not competing against each other.

Where that does not exist we intervene in the market to cover the house that would not have otherwise been covered. We will cover every single house in this country and we will do it quicker than the original seven years set out in the national broadband plan. It is essential that we advance that quicker in Cork and everywhere else.

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