Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State mentioned other providers and low-lying fruit. I can vouch for that. In my town of Tuam a company came in and put in fibre-optic broadband. It did housing estates and so on but the centre of the town has not been done because the company encountered a few problems and decided it would not do it. I am six months trying to even get them to communicate with me. The centre of the town has no fibre-optic connection but we have it on the housing estates. That is great for the housing estates but it is laughable for the businesses in the centre of the town. It is a private company, which will tell us that it can provide something for everybody. The advertising of it leaves me frothing at the mouth at times.

Eir and the private companies will benefit from this national broadband plan as well as customers throughout the country. As the Minister of State said, there has to be a massive realignment of the thinking within these corporations to ensure that this is not a pastime for them. It is real and we need to get on with it.

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