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

It is critical. A survey commissioned during the week looked at the issue of remote working, with 95% of people surveyed citing the view that they did not want to go back to a five-day week all of the time, especially if there is long-distance commuting involved. The national broadband plan will be a critical part of facilitating this alternative and better way of doing things. We must be straight up that the roll-out has been affected by Covid in the context of getting contractors in and getting work done. They are progressing, however. The last time I looked at the figures I believe more than 200,000 houses had been surveyed. It is going to take time, but we are working now to see if we can accelerate it, and there is a benefit that can accrue from that. I am hopeful. They will not truncate it down to anything like we would want it to be, but there is an urgency. It will not be the lengthy initial planned seven years. I hope we can truncate that somewhat.

Going back to earlier discussions on the roll-out, it is critical that the local authorities are fast in working with NBI with regard to giving the planning permissions or the necessary road permissions to allow us to put in some of the poling that we need.

Some of the key bottlenecks are at a very local level. Some councils are very good and others could learn from that practice.

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