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

I said earlier, in response to Deputy Pringle I believe, that the key is to have a variety of developers. The national broadband plan is key, particularly for those areas that the market cannot serve, but investment of the kind that Eir has made in the 300,000 additional houses in rural areas is critical. It probably now needs to start focusing on some urban areas also because some of these areas may not be accommodated by the cable network operator or other high-speed Internet providers. We need to move towards a system whereby every house in the country has access to really high-speed broadband so we can also develop social services on the back of that. I cite the co-operative arrangement between Vodafone and the ESB in the roll-out of SIRO, which has been an exceedingly successful innovation in using electricity wires as a conduit to get broadband into people's homes. The ongoing delivery is critical. Where a service can be delivered effectively in a small number of specific locations where some houses have a service while their deeply frustrated neighbours do not because they are not covered in the plan - for example, where Eir provides a new extension in a rural area - we would encourage it and seek for the regulatory authority to facilitate this in whatever way it can. Through a series of interventions by a variety of companies, including cable, mobile broadband and fixed-line companies such as Eir and SIRO, and through the national broadband plan, we are on a path to having universal coverage, ahead of most of our comparator countries. That will be of great benefit to the country.

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