Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I am pleased to be able to second the motion and congratulate Senator Ross for again raising this issue. He has pushed the matter time and again, as have I, but we have made very little progress.

Where does one start with this? I will start by saying that the Government amendment is quite appalling. The fact that, with a straight face, the Government side is asking the Seanad to commend the Government on its work in this area and for its determination to deliver broadband to those areas of Ireland where it is currently uneconomic is appalling. I do not know how any serious punter on that side of the House could have allowed this amendment to go through.

That is the problem, because what Senator Ross says is right. This issue is not being taken seriously. We spend hours here talking about competitiveness and spent two hours discussing it here today. Twenty minutes ago, I listened to a Minister of State who was sitting where the Minister of State, Deputy Killeen, is now sitting. He said that every home in this country must have broadband. I wonder if somebody should tell him that since we sold off Eircom, we will never get it. The day it was sold off, I said here that I could never see us getting the information superhighway, as it was then called, down to Belmullet. That is the reality.

We talk about competitiveness and productivity. Not having access to broadband is like asking workers to work with one hand manacled to the other. I remember a night maybe 15 years ago when I met a delegation from the capital town of the Minister of State's constituency. The delegation was full of enthusiasm and energy and represented the leading technology town in Ireland. Ennis was showing the way. It has been left on the back burner ever since. After the effort the people put in to get it there, it got them nowhere.

I live maybe 16 or 17 miles from here, which is the centre of power. I cannot get broadband at home. I tried it again this evening just to check it out and make sure nothing had happened in the meantime. I contacted the provider who told me that no products were available in my area because it was not within its line of site. I could nearly see the place from here if I went up high enough. It is 20 minutes up the road in County Dublin. It is not the Black Valley in my native county of Kerry. I asked it to try the card coverage to see whether it had improved and discovered that there was no card coverage. I tried the DSL, checked the line because I have Eircom land lines at home and was told that the lines did not meet the required standard for broadband. So it is not just about unbundling.

As the Minister of State is aware, I am a person who has used technology every day for about 16 or 17 years. I use it all the time. The Minister of State will be aware that I do a podcast in his local area every week. I have a house in a small town in rural France. It is easier for me to send a podcast to Counties Clare and Wexford or elsewhere from a holiday home in a rural area of France than it is from my main residence in County Dublin. There is something daft about that.

The amendment congratulates the private sector. There is nothing there. We have had this debate before. Senator Ross will correct me if I am wrong but I believe it is our third time debating this issue. On a previous occasion, another motion was tabled by Senator Ross, while before that, there was a general debate on the area. It is shameful that nobody seems to care about it.

I saw the letter from John McElligott from eBay because it received wide coverage in business newspapers some while back. This is as important as what is happening in Dublin Castle. The Opposition should be hopping on the Government every week about the shameful way this issue is being handled.

Most of the people here represent or live in rural parts of the country. This is killing regional Ireland. It is hitting education in regional Ireland. Every year for the past four years, the Government has talked about rolling out broadband to every primary and post-primary school in the country. Most people think it has been done. It is same problem, namely, connectivity. Schools are not connected so our children are being held back.

Do people in Government recognise that our productivity in the future will be in intellectual add-on? We will not be making bits and pieces in factories anymore. They can do that more cheaply in any part of the world. It is all about intellectual add-on and the knowledge economy, as referred to by Senator Ross. We are at the bottom of the league when it comes to the knowledge that is coming down those pipes on what we used to call the information superhighway but which we now call the World Wide Web or Internet. We used to be proud of our position on these matters but this is no longer the case.

When the Minister of State wore his previous hat, he had to deal with issues like the retraining of workforces and finding new employment for the people in Shannon or elsewhere. A major part of that involves people doing courses via broadband in order that they can retrain, build on their knowledge and get better qualifications. The involvement of outsourcing must be also considered. I visited a Gaeltacht area in Mayo where people wanted to set up an interpretation facility for Gaeilge in Brussels. They had to move the facility in order to get reception.

Although it is no reflection on the Minister of State, Deputy Killeen, who I hold in high regard, the fact this issue is not important enough for the Minister, Deputy Ryan, to remember to be present is appalling. I wish to refer to studying and working in areas outside the main metro-polises and outsourcing.

The day I heard about metropolitan area networks I knew it was the most stupid decision ever made. What were we doing? We do not want metropolitan area networks. Every home in the country needs broadband. The Government should lease satellite space and soak the country in broadband. It should be available to everyone for a reasonable price. That could be effected with one decision. The idea of shooting down lines, fibre optics, cutting up roads and setting up masts is not necessary anymore because technology has moved on. We should recognise this.

There will be a row about unbundling and the quality of lines. Eircom will not bring the quality of its lines up to DSL level because someone else will lease the line to sell the service at a cheaper rate. There is no incentive for Eircom to do this. The only way to improve the situation is by satellite provision immediately to every part of the country. The Government should lease the space, give us an option and a future and bring us into the new century.