Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I also want to raise an issue experienced by those waiting for high-speed fibre to the home. Thanks to ComReg’s decision D10/18, Eir will not tell people when they will have high-speed Internet. It will not give people a timeline beyond saying, for example, that it will be in 2026. I fully understand the need for fair competition but some compromise has to be reached on this because there are apartment blocks in the centre of Cork city with over 160 apartments that have no high-speed Internet connection. For those people, who have worked through Covid-19 from home and who could not work through Covid-19 from home, this is a disgrace and it is in the heart of the second city in the State. When these people look to sell their homes they have to tell potential buyers that at some stage in the next four years they will have connectivity, which is not good enough. Covid-19 has completely changed the way we live and if one does not have high-speed broadband, there are serious implications.

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