Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Question 62: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment his views on whether Ireland's broadband infrastructure, connectivity and bandwidth, as indicated in recent OECD surveys, is limiting Ireland's competitiveness and economic progress; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31271/07]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Broadband infrastructure and telecommunications policy is the primary responsibility of my colleague, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.

There has been much debate and discussion about broadband provision over the past few years. As a result of forward-thinking investment many years ago our international broadband connectivity is superior to or as advanced as any provided by our competitors. This is a key factor in Ireland winning ground-breaking investment, most recently from Microsoft that will see an investment of $500 million in a new data centre that will house tens of thousands of Internet servers. Furthermore Novell has decided to centralise its Europe, Middle East and Africa TeleWeb operations in Ireland.

These are just a few of the major Internet investments we have won against robust international competition from other countries equally ambitious to be knowledge centres for tomorrow's Internet and broadband economy. Ireland has been successful because these companies rely on robust, resilient and extensive broadband networks for their business, which we provide.

I am aware that there are still challenges in this area and that we are playing catch-up with regard to overall on-line applications, participation rates and penetration. We have seen significant increases in this respect and I recently received a copy of a letter sent to the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Eamon Ryan, from the director of eBay and I have agreed to meet with him to discuss his concerns.

At national level broadband subscriptions now account for over 63% of all Internet subscriptions, of which there are almost 700,000. This is an 87% increase on the corresponding June 2006 figure, so we are making belated but dramatic progress. ComReg estimates that Irish broadband penetration, including mobile broadband, in June this year was 16.48% compared with 18.1% across the EU 25.

Of much more significance is how broadband penetration is growing. The recent OECD report shows that Ireland has the strongest per capita subscriber growth rate in the OECD, adding 6.6 subscribers per 100 inhabitants during the year, far ahead of the OECD average of 3.65 per 100 inhabitants. Accelerating broadband connections at this pace is rapidly shrinking the gap between Ireland and other countries. On residential costs, which are also important for competitiveness, Ireland is five places less expensive than the European Union average. None of this is to suggest complacency on our part. There are issues around the evenness of availability of broadband across the country as well as the adequacy of the infrastructure in use.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

Total investment under the communications and broadband programme 2007-13 will be €435 million. To date all gateways have open access, high-speed fibre networks constructed under the MANs. The MANs consist of high speed, fibre optic rings linking the main business districts to a co-location centre. By making these available to all operators on an open access, carrier-neutral basis they are stimulating competition by removing the need for service operators to build their own networks. The group broadband scheme enables smaller communities to obtain broadband through Government grants. Some 27 MANs have been built and between 2007 and 2008 some 90 networks will be completed. A total of 160 GBS projects have been approved. Funding has also enabled the construction of a third fibre optic backbone network by ESB Telecom and the upgrading of more than 50 telephone exchanges to permit DSL broadband delivery. Consideration will be given to a further phase of MANs once the effectiveness of spending under the first phase has been assessed.

With a view to our future needs in the domain of telecommunications, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources will, in the coming months, publish a policy paper on next generation networks, NGNs. The paper will consider and learn from international experience in NGN roll-out, review current communications policy and analyse policy options on the optimum role for Government in the evolution to next generation broadband. I understand the Minister intends to convene a national advisory forum on NGNs to critique the paper and provide expert high-level guidance on future developments in the telecommunications sector. This is an important initiative because next generation communications infrastructure is emerging as an important factor in the competitiveness of advanced economies and in our circumstances to help progress to the next stages of economic growth.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate the Minister's acknowledgement that we are in a catch-up phase. It is perhaps a more honest answer than the one I got from the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Ryan. John McElligott, managing director, of eBay also wrote to me on foot of previous questions I asked. I will quote one line from his letter. "I am embarrassed to tell my peers in other countries about Ireland's connectivity problems. Ireland is nowhere in terms of on-line application usage and innovation." While that might be an exaggeration, it is clear that we are behind and playing catch up. My difficulty is that the Minister's answers always seem to relate to EU averages. Ireland should not be talking about EU averages. We should be a world leader in broadband and technology.

I highlight the area of broadband speeds where we are behind other countries. I would particularly like the Minister to address this area. The average advertised speed for broadband in Ireland is 3,011 megabits per second compared with Japan where it is 93,000 megabits per second and France where it is 44,000 megabits per second. If Ireland is to become a fibre island, a knowledge economy and the world leader about which we all talk and preach, we cannot afford to be 30 times slower than Japan or in 28th place in the broadband league table of OECD countries, ahead of only Turkey and Mexico. I appreciate that the Minister is not being complacent about it, accepts there is a problem and that we are playing catch up. However, we are not catching up fast enough and are very far behind. I would particularly like the Minister to address the issue of speeds.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I accept the Deputy's point on speed. There is no argument about the OECD measurement. There are reasons for this in that countries like Japan have higher population densities, which give them some advantage over lower speed countries. For example, 26 million people live in the greater Seoul area, half of whom live in apartment blocks.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Seoul is in South Korea.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The point is that I do not disagree with the Deputy. The other competitive issue regarding the digital and Internet space is energy. That would be of concern to me in the medium term as it affects the cost base that may apply. I have also discussed that area with the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Ryan. The Deputy has said we are playing catch up. We know and it is accepted that the privatisation of Telecom Éireann, now Eircom, caused difficulties here in the interim period. The Government introduced the MAN initiative, which has had an impact. We are now the fastest growing country in the OECD. We are catching up pretty quickly. To be fair, the private sector companies are putting their shoulder to the wheel in this regard.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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That is because we slipped down very badly.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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We are moving particularly quickly.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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We slipped——

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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We did.

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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——because of the crazy privatisation.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am not interested in——

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Minister should tell this to the Minister, Deputy Ryan, who is in total fantasy land regarding broadband. At least the Minister, Deputy Martin, has some realisation that we are behind and trying to catch up.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I take the Deputy's point that we always aim to be the best. Although I note that just as the Deputy criticises me for using European parameters, on another day the Opposition loves to use European averages. I accept the Deputy's basic point that it is not the key issue for us. The key issue for us relates to FDI. We compete with Israel, Singapore, Puerto Rico, eastern Europe and other countries for significant investments.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I call Deputy Morgan.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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On the issue of density, we are four times slower than Australia——

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Allow Deputy Morgan to speak.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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——which is pretty sparsely populated unless you count the kangaroos.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The Deputy should speak through the Chair.

Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I acknowledge that broadband is not in the portfolio of the Minister, Deputy Martin, which may be unfortunate. Is he aware of the negative impact its lack is having on enterprise? Every week all Members of this House get a bundle of representations on the dearth of broadband provision. I ask him to bring to bear any influence he can on the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Ryan, to prioritise the matter, which is a huge problem for Irish industry. Clearly the Minister, Deputy Ryan, is not aware of that.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister, Deputy Ryan, is ahead of the game in that he is already calling together a forum regarding next generation technologies.

Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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He is not dealing with this generation.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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He is. He is very keen to advance this agenda and he will leave an impact on this area — of that I have no doubt. There are pluses and minuses. We have the strongest per capita subscriber growth in the OECD. We have added 6.6 subscribers per 100 inhabitants in the past year, which is far ahead of anybody else. We improved to 21st out of 32 countries as benchmarked by Forfás in June 2007. While we have moved up, we still have a significant journey to travel. Broadband access is an important issue for competitiveness.